This thesis presents a case study from an authentic school practice, where seven students, in their second year of a social sciences program in an upper sec­on­dary school, use internet texts in various learning situations. The aim of the study is to map the reading practices of students encountering internet texts. The main data con­sists of obser­vations, audio and screen recordings, writ­ten instruc­tions, and screen ­shots of the sites visited. Reading practices are ana­lysed, draw­ing on concepts from New Literacy Studies and Systemic Func­tional Grammar, inclu­ding literacy events, literacy in terms of text cul­ture, text­ual norms, abstraction, auth­o­rity and mod­ality as a scale of reliability. The results reveal that meaning making resources such as colours, amount of writing and images and choice of fonts all seem to be parts of students’ con­ceptions of reliability. These textual norms result in learning situations in which students search for texts with pre­dominantly dense writing promoting ency­clopaedic know­ledge. These highly auth­orit­ative texts can be hard to under­stand for the students, something that the text analyses indicate. In com­parison to text books, the internet texts used show, a higher level of auth­ority and abs­trac­tion, rein­forced by gram­matical meta­phors. Most situ­ations in the study include peer interaction, but the most obvious learning poten­­tial resides in situations with a clear reading goal, where stu­dents work in groups and where negotiation is part of the meaning mak­ing pro­cess. The pedagogical implications of the study suggest the potential for students to achieve a higher degree of understanding of the encountered inter­net texts, through group work, and discussions concerning the impact of different layouts and the demands of verbal language. Another potential con­cerns methods for avoiding critical literacy being reduced to trivial visual scanning, via dis­cussions focusing on criteria for reliability evaluations. It is suggested that increased teacher awareness concerning the types of internet texts the students will encounter in authentic situations may contribute to students’ field and genre insight.

Within the Mormon culture, women are expected to marry, raise children, and be a "helpmeet" to their husbands. Both men and women are taught that they cannot attain the highest degree of heaven unless they are married in a Mormon temple, where they have been "sealed for time and all eternity." Although neither one can achieve this lofty goal without the other, and although there are some aspects of the Mormon culture in which there is a fair degree of equality between men and women, there is no denying that this is a patriarchal culture. Men hold the priesthood and they preside in their homes. The woman is the man's companion and counselor. Kathy Haynie converted to Mormonism when she was just eighteen, and she met and married her husband only two years later. She is committed to her religion and to her new family, and so she is as surprised as anyone when she begins to chafe under a manipulative and controlling husband. She is naive and credulous, and so she assumes that she needs to pray more, keep her mouth shut, and endure to the end. All of that changes when she attends a week of outdoor training for Boy Scout leaders, where she is one of only a handful of woman, and the only woman in her training patrol. Near the end of the week, Kathy realizes that she has been ignoring a self she has held within for fifteen years. Torn between her love of her children and her commitment to stable family life, and the increasing need she feels for genuine companionship, Kathy navigates the uncertain realm of friendship with one of her scouting friends. We watch her blossom as she gains confidence and skills to take her family out into the wilderness at the same time that she is deluding herself about her involvement with her friend. Family, faith, and friendship collide in this memoir of a Mormon wife and mother.

In December 1978, United Airlines Flight 173 arriving in Portland from Denver with 189 people aboard crash-landed in a suburb at 157th and East Burnside. Ten people were killed and dozens more were injured. The jet ran out of fuel after it had circled for an hour while the crew tried to determine what was wrong with the right main landing gear, which had fallen with a huge double jolt on extension. The investigation that followed the crash placed the blame squarely on the pilot for his negligence in failing to monitor his fuel supply, and secondarily on his crew members, who failed to adequately communicate their concerns about it. The accident was a watershed event in what would become known in the airline industry as crew resource management, a communication model designed to reduce human error by fostering collaborative decision-making and assertiveness training. In the years that have followed the accident, very little has changed in the narrative surrounding it. Articles and docudramas on the plane crash consistently repeat the tale as is, blaming the pilot and shedding no light on the factors that led to the in-flight emergency or on United's role in contributing to the crash. This thesis is a "cold-case" investigation that reveals those contributing factors, which have been so thoroughly ignored. In the words of renowned attorney F. Lee Bailey, "The rule of law requires that all parties who contribute to an accident share in the responsibility for whatever harm has been caused." This is the untold story of all the decisions that brought down United Flight 173, and of the responsibilities heretofore overlooked.

The intent of this thesis was to test the feasibility of constructing performance-for-development narrative using a constructive logic approach. I created an equation which expressed the sum of non-human-elements as the sum of a narrative with each element serving as a variable. I used a review of persuasion literature to provide insight into the selection and manipulation of each variable. I provided my family as a hypothetical example and used my knowledge of their preferences and communication styles in conjunction with the literature and the equation to craft a narrative which might increase pro-school attitudes in other families like my own. I found that there exists a narrative comprised of only non-human elements that are likely to yield change in an audience given a specific situation, and that a constructive logic approach can be used to craft performance-for-development narrative.

No description available.

This thesis is a collection of five pieces of creative nonfiction written over the academic years 2003—2005. Creative nonfiction is a genre that, in some form or another, has always existed, though trends in form and style are constantly in flux. Based on the experiences of the actual author, creative nonfiction seeks to present the journey of a mind at work, in a style that is candid, quirky, and insightful. It seeks to persuade its reader by establishing a likeable and trusted narrator; by relating interesting facts that teach the reader something about the subject at hand; and by appealing to the reader's emotions, especially through techniques of metaphor and figurative language typically employed by writers of fiction, poetry, and drama. Thus, it utilizes the three main tools of rhetoric laid down by that great orator of yore, Aristotle; namely, ethos, logos, and pathos. Rather than exploring one subject in-depth, as is typical of a thesis, this work explores a number of different topics, as is typical of creative nonfiction. The topics include my physical quirks, especially a congenital defect that prevents me from smelling; my volunteer experiences at the Provo, Utah Boys and Girls Club; the traditions of fishing and storytelling in my family; and my burgeoning interest in family history, which was stimulated by a trip to Pine Valley, Utah—a small, rural town in southwestern Utah where some of my early Mormon ancestors settled. The pieces are united more by form than by content, as well as by having been filtered through a single consciousness. Mostly, they are supposed to be enjoyable reading.

Language itself is a technology, and the advent of each major technology of language transmission (from the alphabet to the printing press to the Internet) has changed the range of speaker-audience dynamics which are the starting point for all creative writing. In this thesis, a writer, armed only with his blog archives and a smattering of John Tenniel illustrations, guides the curious reader through various issues raised by creative writing in the blog form. Topics discussed include self-presentation, the juxtaposed brevity and expansiveness of online texts, nonlinear reading, alternative models for revision, the literary possibilities of the hyperlink, speaker-audience-time relationships in online settings, the future of ephemerality, the possibility of digital street theatre, and croquet with live balls and sticks. Also discussed are: the end of the world, the Partition of India, the political ramifications of labels replacing folders, my great-aunt's death, Wynton Marsalis, Jewish Vikings, democracy in Kahanistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, Elvis Costello, Sheikh Hasina, and the virtues of walking to church. This thesis also contains several introductions, an acknowledgements page, and more chapters than I care to count. A five-dollar bill may or may not be hidden between the digital pages of this thesis.

No description available.

This dissertation examines memoirs and non/fiction of the Vietnam War, written by combat veterans (Tim O'Brien, Tobias Wolff, Ron Kovic), and army nurses (Lynda Van Devanter and Joan Furey), and war correspondents (Micheal Herr), most of whom joined the antiwar movement, and used their own war wounds as incontrovertible evidence against it. Since these authors' traumatization compromised their memories of combat, their narratives feature literary devices reflective of post-traumatic stress disorder symptomatology (e.g. flashbacks, non-linear plots, repetition, disassociation). Their authenticity stems from the military jargon, lewd dialogue, and dark humor contained within. A mix of truth-telling and bullshitting paradoxically coexist in these texts; as trauma theories elucidate, improvisation (of details) does not diminish the integrity of a traumatic memory, or the memoir itself. In an era of Nixonian follies, whistleblowing became a high stakes endeavor for journalists and veterans. They exposed the military's standard operating procedures that violated the Geneva Conventions such as free-fire zones, wide-scale bombings, and chemical warfare (e.g. Napalm, Dioxin, Agent Orange). Desiring reformation, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War conducted their own Winter Soldier Investigation into the Mỹ Lai massacre, sending spokesperson John Kerry to testify during the Fulbright Hearings. Women served thanklessly in the war, yet were excluded from men's organizations and denied Veteran's Administration benefits for diseases contracted in Vietnam until Lynda Van Devanter published her memoir, Home Before Morning, then lobbied for women's rights. She inspired a collection of poetry, and a spinoff TV show, China Beach, though she was never credited for the latter.

90年代各國政府對媒體的解除管制（deregulation）、傳播媒體集團間合作策略日興、逐漸形成媒體集團，加上新媒介技術的發展（光纖和衛星技術的發展），為跨國媒體的市場版圖拓展提供了有利條件，在市場機能的運作的背景下，全球的電信業自由化影響台灣電訊傳播民營化，因應全球化、自由化的浪潮，以及市場開放趨勢，全球主要知名頻道紛紛佔據台灣市場，例如CNN、HBO、DISCOVERY頻道、國家地理頻道、ESPN、STAR TV、Disney等。跨國媒體集團在台灣除了經營大眾娛樂的頻道之外，另一類受到觀眾喜愛的「特定類型頻道」為「紀實娛樂」（nonfiction entertainment）頻道。 2006年台灣地區跨國媒體集團共經營43個頻道，根據行政院新聞局所做的「最受歡迎頻道」調查顯示，台灣地區外國頻道中最受歡迎的前三名分別是HBO、Discovery頻道、國家地理頻道（新聞局，2005；54），HBO以電影播放為主，而Discovery頻道與國家地理頻道同屬休閒社教類節目。兩者又以Discovery頻道近年來致力於本土化經營的成績較為顯著，似可觀察其「節目在地化」階段性的策略演變。 本研究鎖定Discovery頻道這一特殊節目類型的跨國媒體集團在台灣的經營與發展為研究主題，深入了解該跨國頻道在全球化的時代中，如何迎合輸入國觀眾的喜好、擴大市場佔有率，分析該媒體集團在全球化時代的「全球在地化」經營模式，並透過節目製作公式，深入其在地化歷程；同時，本研究亦分析當地政府機構的介入與其經營策略的關係及影響。 研究發現跨國媒體進入本地市場之後，就節目產製與在地的營運的方式而言，必須考量全球化的佈局、在地的業務運作及節目製播兩方面的需求。Discovery集團透過全球媒體市場的考量，以在地發展模式加深了全球與在地的交互融合、互相滲透，本研究案例Discovery能夠透過「全球節目公式，在地產製內容」在本地產生其影響力、獲取利潤，以在地的力量（人才、資金、技術、文化）達到「文化接近性」的認同，更在「去地化」與「再地化」的概念下，實踐全球與在地的連結，並邁向「去再地」的發展階段。 承上，本研究設定跨國媒體集團為討論範圍，欲探討跨國媒體集團—面對變化所因應的策略，以Discovery傳播集團為探討個案，希望歸納出其「全球在地化」經營策略， 探討Discovery頻道在台灣之在地化策略實踐成效。 / This research is for the purpose of discussing Nonfiction Entertainment channel –Discovery, its management achievements, the history of localization of programming, the characteristic of arrangement of program telecast, and how the channel cooperate with locally produce productation teams. This research adopts the globalize vision, to analyze and inspect the characteristic of the 12 years on the foreign own channel –Discovery. This study shows that the Discovery channel’s Taiwan's management achievements are related to the channel’s strategy on global localization. The strategy not only affects the channel’s penetration rate and steady growth of advertisement income, this strategy also affect in programming and business practice. The whole says, Discovery’s localization is under the pattern development of "global management, international vision, and local viewpoint.” Its program characteristic is mostly base on traveling program taking from the headquarters supply. Program of subjects about Americas region and Asian region are equal. There are three types of Taiwanese subject programs; they are provided by cooperate, joint venture or outside production. Joint venture productions are growing rapidly, almost match the number of cooperate provide programs. The research also discovered that, the Discovery channel’s evolution of localize program productions are achieved gradually. In the produces system, manufacture management, the program quality, the narrative way, and the image style must conform to its program formula. Although the local responses are intense, it also has its gain after adjustment.