Cultural and Critical Studies 2009 Abstracts
Cultural and Critical Studies Division
“Pictures in Our Heads”: Symbols as representations of cultural meaning in Nigerian mass media advertising • Emmanuel Alozie, North Carolina A&T State University • Over the past 40 decades, spurred by McLuhan’s prediction and the growing importance of international marketing and communication in a shrinking world, studies on the role of advertising as it relates to culture have grown. Despite the increased interest on the subject, few, if any studies, have dealt with an African country. This study serves as an attempt to bridge that gap.
Rapture in the Rave: Orientalism, Hybridity, and Trip Hop • Mary Grace Antony, Washington State University • This study interrogates the discourses surrounding the creation and reception of hybrid cultural products, using the electronic music subgenre trip hop as a case study. Although Indian motifs have been integrated in popular Western entertainment artifacts for centuries, the reception of these culturally hybrid products among Western audiences is often characterized by Orientalist discourses (Said, 1978) that exoticize and fetishize non-Western peoples and cultures.
Constructing hegemonic parenting and gender roles: the case of Jane Swift in ‘The Boston Globe’ • Jaime Loke, University of Texas; Dustin Harp, University of Texas, Austin – School of Journalism; Ingrid Bachmann, University of Texas at Austin • Media discourse scrutinized Massachusetts’ governor Jane Swift when she gave birth to twins. From a feminist perspective, this research uses articulation theory to examine discursive links and frames in news coverage of Swift as governor and mother. Articulations served to vilify Swift’s parenting and governing because she strays from a dominant intensive mothering ideology. Her husband, a stay-at-home father, is nearly invisible because his fathering rather than paid work further disrupts hegemonic white masculinity.
Race Language on the Right: Coded Appeals in Online Discourse • Brian Baresch, University of Texas • Barack Obama in 2008 became the first black person to win the U.S. presidential election, as national discourse on race continued its nearly century-long shift away from overt racism and direct racial appeals in politics. Overt appeals to white racism were largely absent throughout the campaign, but some more subtle, coded language did appear in the appeals of Republican supporters and the candidates themselves.
Rethinking Public Discourse in the Age of Digital Media: A Discourse Analysis of Online Discussion and News Stories on a Local Legislative Issue • Masudul Biswas, Forum on Media Diversity, Louisiana State University • This study compares discourses of readers’ comments on a legislative issue, posted on a blog site of a local TV station in Louisiana, with the discourses of television news stories. The pay raise proposal for the Louisiana lawmakers, got the approval from the State Senate in June, 2008, evoked a public outcry in the middle of economic slowdown and higher living cost.
The Dialogism of News • Jeffrey Cannon, Indiana University – Bloomington • The present study reconsiders the role of conflict in journalism, considering it in a Bakhtinian dialogic context. From this position, a conflict-based news item assumes an official role in the “chronotope” of news, offering a socially enacted, event-based update qua news.
‘Journalism on Trial:’ Plamegate, Scooter Libby, and the Problems of Journalistic Autonomy • Matt Carlson, Saint Louis University • The 2007 trial and conviction of Scooter Libby exposed less-than-ideal relationships between elite Washington journalists and their unnamed government officials. This paper examines how the discourse around the trial and the broader Plamegate controversy sheds light on the precariousness of journalistic autonomy and the uneven distribution of power marking source-journalist interactions.
Discourses of the “Too-Abled”: Contested Body Hierarchies and the Oscar Pistorius Case • Thomas Corrigan, College of Communications, Penn State University; Jamie Paton, College of Communications, Penn State University; Erin Holt, College of Communications, Penn State University • This study explores print coverage of Paralympian Oscar Pistorius’ quest to compete in the 2008 Summer Olympics. A textual analysis of New York Times and Time Magazine coverage revealed four themes: issues of fairness; inconsistency in describing the prosthetics; a privileging of medical discourse; and a fear of the ‘cyborg’. Our study suggests that media discourses, as contested sites for meanings inscribed on the body, served in this case to reinforce body hierarchies.
Becoming Extra-Ordinary: Negotiation of Media Power in the Case of Super Girls’ Voice in China • Li CUI, Miss; Francis Lee, Mr. • The purpose of this study is to examine the reproduction and negotiation of media power in the Super Girls’ Voice (an American Idol type show), which was one of the most successful television entertainment programs in 2005 of China.
Women watching women: Negotiating female representation on Survivor • Carolyn Davis, Syracuse University, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications • Reality television, it is now clear, does not portray ‘real’ events, but it still has a significant impact on how female identities are created in this ubiquitous and popular type of programming.
The Discourse of White Supremacy: a textual analysis of racist Websites • Betsy Dortch, Middle Tennessee State University • The Ku Klux Klan, racist skinheads, and neo-Nazis have all embraced the Internet as a communication tool. This study conducts a textual analysis using the theoretical lens of discourse analysis, qualitatively examining the individual Websites of six prominent white supremacist organizations. Religion, victimhood, and legitimacy are the recurring discursive elements use to justify white supremacy on the groups’ Websites. This discourse on these Websites reveals the reality upon which white supremacist ideology is built.
Advocating Advocacy: Acknowledging and Teaching Journalism As Persuasion • Margaret Duffy, University of Missouri; Esther Thorson, University of Missouri; Fred Vultee, Wayne State University • In this paper, we suggest that journalism is a rhetorical and persuasive enterprise. Based on the rhetorical nature of journalism, we propose a new approach to teaching: We argue that journalists should abandon the pretense of objectivity or neutrality and acknowledge their roles as advocates in society. We argue that this will bolster news credibility and has the potential to help news organizations more effectively build audiences and foster democratic institutions.
EMPOWE(RED)?: Consumer activism in the (RED) campaign to aid Africa • Spring-Serenity Duvall, Indiana University School of Journalism • The history of celebrity involvement in politics, activism, and philanthropy is a long and complex one, but a new generation of celebrity activists raises fresh theoretical concerns in large part because of its close link to capitalist consumerism. This paper critically examines U2 frontman Bono’s (RED) campaign as a media phenomenon that supports existing power structures by promoting capitalism and consumerism as effortless and effective forms of activism.
Balancing the Mediasphere: Bias and Legitimacy in Alternative Labor Radio • Brian Ekdale, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Over the past several decades, the amount of business news reporting from a top-down, corporate perspective has far surpassed news from a bottom-up, workers perspective (Douglas, 1986; Park & Wright, 2007; Ryan, 2004; Samuelson, 2002). While the three major cable business channels reach over 100 million homes daily, there is no television or radio network of near equivalence that covers labor news.
Socialism’s Loss and Meat Safety’s Gain: The Agenda-Setting Power of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” • Michael Fuhlhage, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • American lore holds that The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s fictionalized exposé of squalor in Chicago’s meatpacking houses, is responsible for the creation of the FDA. But Sinclair’s intent was to elevate consciousness of the need for socialism, not to press for reform of meat safety.
Journalism and Social Change: The Globalization Discourse in World Music Reviews • Elfriede Fursich, Boston College; Roberto Avant-Mier, Boston College • This study examined the coverage of world music in the popular press in a textual analysis of 350 newspaper and magazine reviews. We found that over the course of the last thirty years music journalists developed a new cultural sensibility on globalization in several distinctive phases. The position of music reviews as popular journalism helped and hindered the discussion of cultural globalization. However, at its best, the reviews created a relevant and productive discourse on globalization.
Text-Audience Convergence or Divergence? A Cross-Cultural Fantasy Theme Analysis of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima • Koji Fuse, University of North Texas; James Mueller, University of North Texas • Six decades after the Battle of Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood dedicated two movies—Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima—to respectively represent the viewpoint of each side of the fighting. This paper applied fantasy theme analysis to user reviews of the movies available on the U.S. Yahoo! Movies and Yahoo! Japan Eiga and compared the results with the movies’ dramatizing messages to contribute to cross-discourse and cross-cultural applications of symbolic convergence theory.
De-metaphorization in Paratexts: Powers behind EPA’s distinguishing between Climate Change and Global Warming • Yi-Hsing Han, Florida State University • Global warming is a conceptual metaphor associated with pressing, harmful, adverse, threats, catastrophic, alarm, and combat. It is originated from a metaphorical illustration: greenhouse. There are two dimensions for understanding a metaphor. The first is the factual metaphorical dimension, which means how people perceive metaphorical phenomenon; the second is the judgmental dimension, that is, how people interpret or evaluate a metaphor and by which criteria. Power works underlying both dimensions.
Palestine Media Watch and the U.S. News Media: Strategies for Change and Resistance • Robert Handley, University of Texas at Austin • This study historically focuses on Palestine Media Watch, a media watchdog, and its strategic interactions with the U.S. news media to add to models of news production that pay special attention to collective resistance to mass media portrayals. The study employs the dialogic and dialectical models of the news media to understand efforts by Palestine Media Watch to change news media representations of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, assess its effectiveness, and catalogue journalistic resistance to change.
U. S. Network TV Newscasts and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War • Mark Harmon, University of Tennessee; Catherine Luther, University of Tennessee • The researchers examined all 44 U. S. network (ABC, CBS, and NBC) television newscast stories involving the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) from October 1968 until January 2001. These videotapes were available from the Television News Archive and Index maintained at Vanderbilt University. The results conform to past research about Social Movement Theory, specifically heretical social movement organizations.
(Re)Locating Reality TV as Popular Science • Paul Hillier, University of Tampa • By locating reality TV within a wider context of popular science, this paper indentifies traditions and practices that have been drawn upon to help formulate reality TV in the United States. Adding to more recent work of critical genre analysis, one of the contributions of this paper is to explore social experiments as a genre while also documenting the shared characteristics of scientific and commercial versions of social experiments.
Food Endearments and Rubber Duckies: Public Morality and Constructions of Family and Culture in an Abstinence Campaign • Mara Hobler, University of Maryland • In 2007 and 2008 the Parents Speak Up National Campaign produced a series of public service announcements urging parents to stress to their children the value of waiting until marriage to become sexually active. This study examines the federally funded Parents Speak Up National Campaign’s 2008 Muffinhead advertisements using historical, contextual, and textual analysis.
More than black and white: A critical analysis of newspaper coverage of the 1968 Olympic protests • Sarah Janel Jackson, University of Minnesota • This study draws from framing theory and public sphere theory in a critical discursive investigation of the 1968 newspaper coverage of the Olympic stand protest by John Carlos and Tommie Smith. Findings reveal that while the mainstream press largely reinforced hegemonic constructions of race the black press functioned as a counterpublic sphere, responding to the dominant discourses presented in mainstream media and presenting unique contextual frames for understanding the protest. Audience implications are considered.
State sponsored cyborgs: Gender, technology and immaterial labor in NBC’s ‘Bionic Woman’ and ‘Chuck’ • Robin Johnson, University of Iowa • This paper analyzes two primetime television series on NBC: ‘Chuck’ and ‘Bionic Woman.’ The narratives and representations in the two programs raise questions about the role of immaterial labor, gender, technology, and bio-power in contemporary life. Multiple theoretical perspectives, including the political economy of post-industrialism, immaterial labor, and technofeminism, are engaged to reveal how each series articulates the dominance of techno-masculinity and reifies the unequal sexual division of labor around prized technological work.
Information anarchy: The effect of the Internet on conspiracy theory encoding and decoding • William Kaufhold, University of Texas at Austin • Interactions with self-described conspiracy believers revealed commonalities of both thought and media consumption. Participants shared nearly identical, critical and oppositional views on the September 11 terrorist attacks, the flooding after Hurricane Katrina and the role of the Bush administration. They also shared a commonality of interest in a great number of alternative online information sources and a unified distrust and rejection of mainstream media.
“They are Romanies”: Social construction of an oppressed minority for an elite audience • Rick Kenney, University of Central Florida • With the Cold War ended and walls literally having come down by the 1990s, journalists in formerly oppressed countries were granted greater freedom to cover the world, as well as tiny corners of it. Stories, issues, and photographs that never came to light prior to these changes were published for the first time. One minority group, however, remained largely in the shadows of civil society in eastern Europe, a victim of the hegemony of journalistic discourse.
“Redemption for Our Anguished Racial History”: The Embrace and Evasion of Race in Commemorative Journalism of Barack Obama • Carolyn Kitch, Temple University; Siobahn Stiles, Temple University • This paper considers how race was discussed in commemorative journalism produced after Barack Obama’s election and inauguration by major American newspapers, magazines, and television news. A discourse analysis reveals that these news media contained competing narratives: some celebrated Obama’s victory as a racial milestone, while others elided racial issues, instead emphasizing diversity and democracy. Overall, while racial representation changed during coverage of this election, racial discourse—and journalists’ thematic avoidance of racial issues—did not.
A New Contract for the Press: Copyright, Public Journalism, and Self-Governance in the Digital Age • Daniel Kreiss, Department of Communication, Stanford University; Mike Ananny, Department of Communication, Stanford University • Drawing from the underlying principle of copyright and positive interpretations of the First Amendment, we propose a two-tiered system of state incentives for journalism. Our first tier subsidizes those who voluntarily surrender the right to control the dissemination of their work. Our second tier supports any actor who follows practices – transparency, accountability, dialogue, reliability, and collaboration – that increase the overall quality of journalism. We conclude by proposing an institutional model for administering these incentives.
Reporting and decision-making in Kolkata: Indian journalists navigate culture, class, and chaos in Nandigram • Patricia Spencer, University of North Texas; Jacqueline Lambiase, University of North Texas • Reporters gather news for four English-language newspapers in Kolkata, the West Bengal state capital in India. Collected in many languages, their English narratives target Kolkata’s emerging middle class. Using semi-structured interviewing, qualitative theme analysis, and grounded theory, this study explores how culture, training, and tradition affect the decision-making practices of 21 Kolkata journalists. Themes include class and violence in Nandigram, sensitivity and idealism, and ethics as tied to accuracy, fairness, and other professional competencies.
ICE, ICE Baby! Local News, Immigration Raids and Audience Reactions On-line • Kim LeDuff, University of Southern Mississippi; Robin C. Kauth, University of Southern Mississippi • In late August 2008, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raided Howard Industries, a major industrial company in Laurel, Mississippi and detained 350 illegal immigrants. In the course of one week, the region’s local newspaper, The Hattiesburg American posted a total of 41 stories related to the incident on the newspaper’s website.
Politicization of Teen Pregnancy: Fox News Channel’s Coverage of Bristol Palin’s Pregnancy During the 2008 Presidential Election • Hye-Jin Lee, University of Iowa • In general, discussions on teen pregnancy in the media have remained in the realm of the moral. Fox News Channel (FNC) has been no exception in criticizing teen pregnancy as a result of lack of moral values. FNC’s general stance on teen pregnancy, however, faced challenges when the news on Bristol Palin’s pregnancy surfaced in September 2008 in the midst of a heated U.S. Presidential election.
Striving for Hegemony in a Public Health Crisis:Xinhua News Agency’s Framing of the Sanlu Tainted Formula Scandal • Zhaoxi (Josie) Liu, University of Iowa • This study analyzes the framing of the melamine-tainted baby formula scandal by Xinhua News Agency, China’s official news agency, in September 2008. From a critical perspective, this study argues that Xinhua’s framing of this public health crisis is an example of China’s state-run media’s hegemonic role in today’s China, where the ruling Communist Party is seeking to maintain hegemony in a country that is fast-changing and full of antagonism among different groups of its people.
On Deadline in Harm’s Way: A Qualitative Study of Trauma Journalists • Mark Masse, Ball State University • An exploratory qualitative study analyzed statements from in-depth interviews and published accounts of thirty-six (U.S., international) journalists who have covered tragedy and trauma (e.g., war, terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, crimes). A purposive (non-probability) sample examined the motivation for coverage, the effects of such coverage on journalists, the coping techniques employed by affected journalists, and the lessons for other journalists, their media audiences, and the communities in which they live.
Antiauthoritarian Editorial Cartoons of the 2008 U.S. Bailout Bill • Christopher Matthews, University of Missouri-Columbia • A critical textual analysis of 75 editorial cartoons published on political blogs from September 18, 2008 to October 3, 2008 shows how blog coverage of the economic bailout bill used editorial cartoons as a depiction of antiauthoritarianism. The editorial cartoons’ depictions demonstrated antiauthoritarianism in two ways: by engaging in “personal attacks” against authority figures and by illustrating an “indignant exploitation” of non-authority figures by more powerful political entities.
Commodity Fetishism in the Digital Era • Matthew McAllister, Penn State • This paper applies the Marxian concept of commodity fetishism to digital media, focusing on how the “commodity-sign” of brands is celebrated and production contexts co-opted in new media. After first reviewing commodity fetishism, characteristics of commercial websites and integrated/database marketing for the future of commodity signs are discussed. The essay then argues that digital consumer discourse, rather than masking capitalist production, appropriates production via web-distributed “insider information,” and the consumer as various forms of digital labor.
Looking-Glass Journalism: Social Drama in the Control of Intellectual Deviance • Michael McDevitt and Marco Briziarelli, University of Colorado-Boulder and Brian Klocke, State University of New York, Plattsburg • We propose a model of looking-glass journalism (LGJ) to describe how media operate in the control of intellectual deviance. In doing so, we explicate a dramaturlogical scheme that links journalism sociology with cultural perspectives on media hegemony. When absolutist beliefs are challenged, journalism takes its cue by reifying a punitive public, and aggressively performs a social drama in accordance with Victor Turner’s theory. We apply LGJ to the case of newspapers coverage on Ward Churchill.
Making News Popular: Cable News Wars and the Industry Popular • Anthony Nadler, University of Minnesota • A frantic competition among cable news channels has spawned new ideas about popularizing news. Through an analysis of discourse on the cable news wars in trade journals, executive interviews, books by cable personalities, and the columns of media critics, this paper examines how certain strategies have been deemed viable for popularizing cable news.
A Tale of Two Campuses: The (Un)covering of College Shootings • Temple Northup, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill • On February 8, 2008, a shooting occurred at the Louisiana Technical College. Less than a week later, another shooting occurred at Northern Illinois University. While the former received virtually no media coverage, the latter was widely covered. A textual analysis examined local newspaper coverage of the two shootings, paying attention to language that highlighted class, race, and gender differences. Findings indicate the language used reinforced racial, gender, and class stereotypes.
Olympic Orchestration: Bud Greenspan’s Re-presentation of Sport • Lori Amber Roessner, University of Georgia • This study will explore the mass-mediated construction of the Olympics through the lens of eight-time Emmy award-winning filmmaker Bud Greenspan. Examining a sample from his body of work, the study will offer a critical-cultural analysis of his re-presentation of the Olympic Games. One question will serve to guide the narrative: how does Greenspan construct the Olympics within his twentieth-century sports documentaries?
Shooting, Shopping Sprees, Satire and the Curious Case of Sarah Palin • Kathleen M. Ryan, Miami University-Ohio • “Saturday Night Live” lampooned 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a sexy, but ultimately unqualified, candidate. This paper uses framing theory to investigate how Tina Fey’s caricature became an accepted presentation of Palin in both news and comedic programming. The caricature can be seen as a doppelgänger, who became more legitimate to the audience than Palin and was reinforced by the candidate’s own actions. Its acceptance raises questions about ethics in television news reporting.
Shades of War: A Framing Analysis of John Sack’s “M” • j. keith saliba, jacksonville university • This study analyzes the ways famed literary journalist John Sack framed the events within his influential Vietnam War piece, “M.” Employing qualitative framing analysis, the study found that Sack’s emphasis of particular attributes, quotes, anecdotes and personal interjections-and the exclusion of others-created a disproportionately negative framing of the events of “M.” The author contends that framing emphasizing only positive or negative attributes undermines journalism’s stated goal of accurately portraying nonfiction events.
Where are all the ‘Others’? – reconstructions of inequality and discrimination in public service broadcasting • Laura Schlotthauer, USC Annenberg School for Communication • In contrast to its mission there is evidence that ethnic diversity in public media continues to be largely insufficient. Yet, investigations into the reasons for this exclusion are extremely rare. The present study seeks to address this lack of research by adopting a discourse theoretical framework to individualist accounts of inequality and discrimination of established agents in the field.
Negotiating with the Hermit Kingdom: A Cultural Perspective on North Korean Nuclear Talks • Hyunjin Seo, Syracuse University • This paper examines major problems in Washington’s negotiations with North Korea and offers specific policy recommendations to resolve these problems. The author argues that Washington’s failure to effectively understand cultural values and norms that determine Pyongyang’s worldview and negotiation styles is one of the main reasons that Washington has been unsuccessful in dealing with Pyongyang. If Washington were to understand these underlying factors, they would see that North Korea’s behavior is actually consistent and predictable.
Restoring the Primacy of Industry; Psychological Action Propaganda and Advertising during the Depression Era • Burton St. John, Old Dominion University; Ana Timofte, Old Dominion University • In the aftermath of the Great Depression, business interests used advertising to assert the beneficence of industry and private enterprise. Corporations used a more personal approach in their advertising to persuade Americans that business leadership would help Americans manage tough times and move forward toward a brighter tomorrow. This study examines these ads as psychological action propaganda that uses both truth-telling and mind-pressuring to assert the primacy of business interests.
The Shark Became a Vegetarian: Regulating Children’s Programming in a Digital World • Margot Susca, Florida State University • Children in the United States watch on average 17 hours of television each week and annually see 40,000 commercials. As marketers enhance strategies to reach this youth market, Americans are on the cusp of a digital television revolution. In late 2006, in light of the pending transition to digital, children’s advocates and industry executives reached agreements that led to modifications to the Children’s Television Act of 1990.
Moral Panics & Happy-Slaps (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Technology) • Ryan Thomas, Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University; Matthew Kushin, Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University • Happy-slapping – the act of assaulting someone and documenting and sharing it using a camera phone – is a phenomenon that has dominated British headlines since early 2005. We undertake a discourse analysis of newspaper reports of a year’s coverage of happy-slapping. We find that technology and mediated communication is blamed for the phenomenon, that its perpetrators are characterized as menaces to society, and that solutions to the problem are cosmetic and not structural.
Do it for the Polar Bears: An Examination of Global Warming Discussion After Hurricane Katrina • Melissa Thompson, University of Minnesota • Climate change is a topic of heated debate in the media and Hurricane Katrina added a new dimension to this debate. A framing analysis of climate change coverage in the newsweekly magazines Time and The Economist the year after Hurricane Katrina revealed a number of frames that relied on the news values of conflict and immediacy, among others. These news values imparted a sense of fleetingness to climate change, which may inhibit public understanding.
Planning for Power: News Media Discourse in the Debate about a High-Voltage Transmission Line in Vermont • Richard Watts, University of Vermont • This paper examines the media discourse surrounding a proposed 63 mile high-voltage transmission line in Vermont. The author examines the prominence of certain frames and the absence of others by reviewing the frame’s cultural resonance, narrative fidelity and the framing activities and media standing of the frame sponsors. The dominance of the electric utility sponsored frames contributes to the understanding of how economic elites promote the creation of frames in the news media.
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