On April 30, 1997, for the first time in television history, an actress on a popular television sitcom announced to the world that both se and the character she played were lesbians. This study offers an interpretation of the significance of Ellen DeGeneres' coming through a cultural studies analysis of the April 14, 1997 Time magazine article in which DeGeneres comes out and the April 30, 1997 "Ellen" television episode in which DeGeneres brings her character, Ellen Morgan, out. The study revealed sites of ideological differences between the two texts that could point to a struggle over the meaning of gayness in modern American society. The results suggest that mainstream attitudes and beliefs could be in the process of shifting toward a more normalized view of homosexuality.

This qualitative study sheds light on the framing of the sexual abuse of the Boko Haram's female captives sent to the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps and analyzes emotional themes from tweets focusing on the release of the Boko Haram's female victims, the Chibok girls. Six articles were chosen from BBC (a British news source), Punch (a Nigerian news source), and the New York Times (an American news source) to reveal the frames. In addition, 118 tweets were examined to address emotional tweets under #ourgirlsareback, #82chibokgirls, #chibokgirls82, and #chibokgirls. The findings discovered the presence of the human interest frame, conflict frame, responsibility frame, and a stereotype in the articles. The tweets showed positive common themes- joy, gratitude, and hope. Also, the tweets included conspiracy theories.

This thesis study takes a mixed methods and black feminist approach to find out how black women are represented within the beauty advertisements of women's fashion magazines.

This thesis features a qualitative analysis of eight Korean media products — both fiction and nonfiction. For many years, South Korea (hereafter also called Korea) has been called the "world's plastic surgery capital" by many publications, such as Business Insider and The New Yorker. Although Business Insider considers the United States the "vainest country in the world," the numbers of cosmetic surgeries, percentage wise, per person in Korea still outnumber those in the United States, with 20 procedures per 1,000 persons. In this thesis, I argue by using the cultivation theory that Korean television, such as K-Dramas, talk shows and films, which celebrate transformations and feature makeovers and thus normalize cosmetic surgery, create a fantastic space for viewers where the viewers are compelled to act on a media-generated desire to undergo cosmetic surgery in the belief that doing so will also transform or better their lives in the same way it does for the characters in these Korean television productions.

This study focuses on the transgender community's presence and portrayal in advertisements that reach a broad, mainstream audience base. Through a mixed-methods use of focus groups and qualitative content analysis, the content, context, and framings of ads between the years 2015 and 2018 are explored to illustrate current portrayals of the trans community and how the industry is approaching this subcultural group. Its findings contribute to advertising research by exploring current trends in trans portrayals in the cultural context they exist. Because trans advertising in both LGBTQ+ publications and to mainstream audience is largely unexplored, this study seeks to begin a conversation among advertising professionals. The main objective is to ultimately improve the number of genuine, positive portrayals of trans people in advertising and hold the industry accountable for the role they play in serving this community.

This study examines African American stereotypes in film. I studied six directors, Kathryn Bigelow, Spike Lee, the Russo Brothers, Ryan Coogler, Tate Taylor, and Dee Rees; and six films Detroit, BlacKkKlansman, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Help, and Mudbound. Using the framework of critical race theory and auteur theory, I compared the common themes between the films and directors. The main purpose of my study is to see if White or Black directors predominantly used African American stereotypes. I found that both races of directors rely on stereotypes for different purposes. With Black directors, the stereotype was explained further through character development, while the White directors used the stereotype at face value with no further explanation.

This study focuses on dark-skinned, Black women's representation in Black sitcoms. Through a mixed-methods use of a comparative textual analysis and focus group, the content and context of episodes from A Different World and Dear White People are explored to illustrate portrayals of dark-skinned, Black women and how these portrayals affect dark-skinned, Black women's self-esteem. Its findings contribute to colorism research by exploring colorism in Black sitcoms. Because this topic is largely unexplored, this study seeks to begin a conversation about dark skinned, Black women's representation in Black sitcoms. The main objective is to ultimately improve their depictions and roles in Black sitcoms and hold Black creatives responsible for the role they play in promoting colorism and its ultimate effect on Black women's self esteem.

This two-part mixed-methods study analyzed the Twitter activity of two regional magazines – D Magazine and Texas Monthly – and how social media editors implement strategies to maintain journalistic integrity (news values, topics, and ethical standards) while increasing engagement.

Online fandom communities exist as a hub of subcultural construction for people across the globe. For queer people, fandom represents a space to safely converge over mutual interests. Previous research has focused on queer fans and popular music fans independently, often taking a pathological approach. This study qualitatively examines queer participants in the Katy Perry fandom through surveys and one-on-one interviews. The theoretical backbone of the study is built around uses and gratifications theory, seeking to understand motivations for fandom participation. The concepts of the heteronormative matrix and queer resistance are additionally incorporated to analyze how LGBTQ+ fans combat societal norms. This research found seven motivations for queer fans to participate in online fandom, providing insight into an understudied community.

This qualitative study addresses how the Dallas Morning News and Al Día reporters and editors determine what type of news related to the Dallas Latino and Hispanic communities gets covered. It also looks into how and why each newspaper tackles the coverage of these communities. Through a systematic analysis of 8 in-depth interviews and a 6-month ethnography, the findings of this study suggest that Latino and Hispanic journalists in Dallas feel the Latino and Hispanic communities are regarded as the "other." This study suggests the newsroom's hegemony and its news production routines influence the way Latino and Hispanic communities are covered in Dallas, and the way Latino and Hispanic reporters and editors who primarily cover these communities are treated. Though the newsrooms have made an effort to diversity its staff, reporters and editors claim they still have a long way to go before the staff accurately represents the large Hispanic and Latino population in the city.

The increase of mass shootings in the U.S. has amplified news reporting on mental illness as a possible factor in the shootings despite no evidence linking the two issues. Sources used to explain mental illness in stories that explore the motivations of mass shooters affect audience perception. Through a qualitative content analysis of local newspaper coverage of five U.S. mass shootings in 2015, journalists linked mental illness as a possible motive through sources who were not qualified to treat or diagnose mental illness. Journalists also ignored professional guidance from the Associated Press on mental illness reporting in the context of mass shootings. Additionally, journalists assumed the audience was knowledgeable of mental illness in general terms and specific diagnoses. These findings indicate coverage of mass shootings includes inaccurate information about shooters' motives, and it also continues to frame mental illness as dangerous.

For many years newspapers were locally owned by editors and publishers. However, today many are run by corporations from out of state. As a result, many communities have lost the personal relationship between the family owned publication and the community. Gene Howe, who served as editor, publisher and columnist of the Amarillo Globe-News from 1926 until his death in 1952, believed the community was where the focus should be and the newspaper should do all that it can to help their readers. Despite the fact that Howe was not born in Amarillo, Texas, his passion and love for the city and its inhabitants compensated for it. During the Dust Bowl and Great Depression Howe and the Globe-News helped Amarillo survive the dust and economic storms that blew through the Texas Panhandle, an area that has not been written as much as other parts of Texas. Through his “Tactless Texan” column, which served as a pulpit to the community, to the various contests and promotions the newspaper sprang up, including the creation of Mother in Law Day, Gene Howe gave the newspaper another dimension little has been studied about, the role of the editor and publisher in guiding a community through …

As entertainment reflects a culture's ideology, it is important for researchers to study its messages and subsequently its potential meanings. Entertainment has the power to inform and persuade, creating models for behavior with which the public interacts. The entertainment texts for the purpose of this study are the Castle television series and the Nikki Heat novels. Together, they create a unique multi-layer fictional world. By using postmodern, feminist, communication, and entertainment theories, the results of this study provide a tightly focused lens which views a narrow aspect of entertainment media. Each text was thoroughly examined using textual analysis, Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis, and conversation analysis. Contrary to expectations, the results indicated that the Castle and Nikki Heat texts support hegemonic ideology, particularly through the use of exaggerated stereotypes, strict gender roles, imagery, and narrative choices that help perpetuate rape culture. The discussion outlines how these results can be interpreted through the dominant messages presented in the texts. This research is intended to serve as a foundation for future research regarding entertainment media.

This problem's investigation deals with the influence of sports photographer Al Panzera upon staff photographers at four major metropolitan newspapers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Information was gathered through interviews, periodicals, and the pages of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The study found Panzera to be influential in varying degrees upon all photographers interviewed. He proved most influential with beginners, especially in the 1940's and 1950's. He influenced advanced photographers to a limited extent. Areas of influence included his techniques, abilities, personality, and tenure with Star-Telegram.

The problem involved in this study was to determine the success or failure of the use of the editorial in achieving a goal, specifically, editorials by Ray P. Holland in favor of the Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 1929 and the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act of 1934. Editorials from the Bulletin of the American Game Protective Association and Field and Stream were classified into categories to show an editorial position over a selected time period. Material from the permanent collection of the Holland library at Wesleyan University and family information was used to record a biography of Holland's achievements. The study shows that Holland's contributions in journalism will stand as a benchmark to ensuing generations of journalists who seek to realize their goals through the proper use of the editorial.

Most newspapers today are struggling to survive in an increasingly fragmented and digital media environment. How have their owners or corporate parents shaped or adapted their business practices to in order to thrive? This question guides the overall approach to this study. The focus is on one newspaper, the Dallas Morning News. In particular, how has the News used corporate messages to respond to the changing media landscape? This study employs forms of rhetorical and discourse analysis to determine the effectiveness of the News' corporate messages during a 10-year period in order to answer this question. This study finds that the News used inconsistent and ineffective corporate communications throughout this tumultuous period.

The purpose of this study is to examine gender bias in sports media from the perspective of the sports columnist. The research analyzed 1,082 sports columns written by ten columnists (five male, five female) at newspapers across the United States. The columns were scrutinized to determine if the column subject was male or female. Results found that 84.4% of the sports columns were written about male athletes or men's sports compared to only 9% devoted to female athletes and women's sports. The research also found that female sports columnists write about female sports 12.7% of the time, while male sports columns only dedicate 6% of their columns to female athletes or women's sports. Newspapers with a larger circulation were more likely to have sports columns about female sports than were newspapers with smaller readerships. Six of the columnists were then interviewed to get their opinions on gender issues in sports journalism.

The problem of this study was to determine how well the public information office of the Dallas Police Department performed in three public relations areas: staff consultation, employee communication, and press relations. Interviews were conducted with the command staff of the Dallas Police Department and with nine mass media representatives who had regular contact with both the police department and the public information office. Their answers were compared with public relations principles taken from literature in both the general public relations and the police public relations fields to see if the public information office was succeeding or failing in performing its staff-consultation, employee-communication, and press-relations functions.

This study determined attitudes held by metropolitan city editors in Texas toward current journalism instruction in colleges and universities. An open-ended questionnaire was mailed to city editors of newspapers in Texas with circulation over 50,000.

This study was concerned with determining the amount of exposure high school students have to mass media and their attitudes toward news. The purposes of this study were to find how much time high school students devote to newspapers, radio, television, and magazines for entertainment and information, to discover which publications or channels students are most interested in and why; to find out specifically what young people read, listen to, and watch; to discover how most of them get their news information; and to determine positive and negative feelings toward media news.

Punk rock music has long been labeled sexist as copious media-generated accounts and reports of the genre concentrate on male artists, hyper-masculine performances, and lyrics considered to be aggressive, sexist, and misogynist. However, scholars have rarely examined punk rock music longitudinally, focusing heavily on 1980s and 1990s manifestations of the genre. Furthermore, few systematic content analyses of feminist themes in punk rock song lyrics have been conducted. The present research is a longitudinal content analysis of lyrics of 600 punk rock songs released for four decades between 1970 and 2009 to examine the prevalence of and longitudinal shifts in antiestablishment themes, the prevalence of and longitudinal shifts in sexist themes relative to feminist themes, the prevalence of and longitudinal shifts in specific feminist branches, and what factors are related to feminism. Using top-rated albums retrieved from Sputnik Music’s “Best Punk Albums” charts, systematic random sampling was applied to select 50 songs for each combination of three gender types and four decades. Sexism and feminism were then operationalized to construct a coding sheet to examine relevant dimensions. While the present study found no significant patterns of longitudinal increase or decrease in feminist or sexist themes, it revealed that feminist themes were …

Hundreds of reporters gather and interpret news for four English-language newspapers in India's second-largest urban area Kolkata, West Bengal's state capital, which is home to over 4 million people. Journalists from The Statesman, The Telegraph-Kolkata, The Hindustan Times and The Times of India discuss how they collect their stories in Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, and many other languages and write them in English targeting a small but emerging middle-class audience. Whether these articles focus on people-centric urban planning, armed vigilantes in community disputes, dowry death cases, or celebrity culture, all of the reporting involves cultural and ethical challenges. Using semi-structured interviewing and qualitative theme analysis, this study explores how gender, class, and religion affect the decision-making practices of 21 journalists working in Kolkata.

Today’s journalism students are learning in a time in which new technology innovations, including online news sites, blogs, and social media, have become a prominent part of the journalism industry. Whether it’s newspapers, public relations, or broadcast, technology has become a part of every area of journalism. While several studies have focused on how journalism classes should be taught in lieu of this change, how students are learning and how they feel about this changing industry has yet to be shared. This research uses both a survey of 203 current, undergraduate pre-journalism students at a large, Southwestern university, as well as focus group interviews with several subgroups of 11 of those students. The results show, not surprisingly, that journalism students are heavy users of technology and social media. They also show that a majority of journalism students prefers consuming media online. However, although students use technology and social media frequently, and also consume media online, there is evidence that suggests that they would rather learn face-to-face with an instructor than take online classes. In addition, they feel positive about their future in the changing industry.

About 30 million women in the U.S. are estimated to be victims of sex crimes in their lifetimes. However, sex crimes, especially those committed against immigrants are the least reported crime in the country. Some sex crime victims say the fear of media criticism discourages them from reporting the crime. in May 2011, an African maid working at a New York hotel accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former director of the International Monetary Fund, of sexually assaulting her. This qualitative content analysis examined the coverage of the DSK case, by three leading international newspapers: the New York Times, the Guardian and Le Monde. Findings suggest that Strauss-Kahn received more favorable coverage than Diallo. Frames identified in the coverage include the importance of status/prominence, race, culture differences, victim-blaming, male privilege, socioeconomic differences and focus on appearance. the study recommends that news organizations avoid judgmental coverage of sex crimes and consider identifying victims by allowing them to tell their side of the story.