This work explores the place of creative non-fiction in Australian tertiary journalism education. While creative non-fiction — a genre of writing based on the techniques of the fiction writer — has had a rocky relationship with journalism, this study shows that not only is there a place for the genre in journalism education, but that it is inextricably linked with journalism. The research is based on results from studies using elite interviews and a census of Australian universities with practical journalism curricula. The first stage of this study provides a definition of creative non-fiction based on the literature and a series of elite interviews held with American and Australian creative non-fiction experts. This definition acknowledges creative non-fiction as a genre of writing that tells true stories while utilising fiction writing techniques such as point of view, dialogue and vivid description. The definition also takes into account creative non-fiction’s diverse range of publication styles which include feature articles, memoir, biography, literary journalism and narrative non-fiction. The second stage of the study reports upon elite interviews with Australian writers who have produced works in the genres of journalism and creative non-fiction. These interviews reveal the close relationship journalism and creative non-fiction share across a variety of approaches and techniques. This study also shows how creative non-fiction can improve the careers of journalists and the quality of journalism. The census of journalism programs further reveals the place of creative non-fiction in tertiary journalism education and prompts the formulation of a two tiered model for the genre’s inclusion in the curriculum. The first tier involves including creative non-fiction in a core journalism subject. The second tier is an elective creative non-fiction subject which builds on the skills developed in the core classes. Through the literature, and the responses of the elites and survey respondents, it was possible to show how creative non-fiction helps journalism students to appreciate the history of their profession, explore their talents and finally to be part of what may be the future of print journalism.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Todd F. Simon / The debate over human origins was a prominent fixture of U.S. news coverage during the first decade of the 21st century. During this period, U.S. news media featured regular portrayals of an all-out culture war between supporters of biological evolution and advocates of so-called “rival theories” of human origins. In the end, this war would cost American taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees, confuse science students, divide communities with unparalleled animosities, and alter public policy at the city, county and state level. While there have been previous content analyses performed on U.S. newspaper coverage of evolution and its primary challenger, an idea called "intelligent design," these analyses have tended to be somewhat informal (Mooney & Nisbet, 2005) or lacking (Martin, et al., 2006). The following study addresses these gaps in the literature. Using content analysis, the following study examines hard news coverage of intelligent design presented in 12 U.S. newspapers of varying circulation size and storytelling influence. A final sample of 421 newspaper articles originally published between the years 2000 and the end of the year 2009 is analyzed herein. Results demonstrate that U.S. newspapers initially framed intelligent design as primarily a religious / unscientific concept, but that intelligent design was increasingly framed as a scientific / unreligious concept leading up to, during and after the landmark 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. Additionally, this study finds no significant differences in framing intelligent design as a religious / unscientific or scientific / unreligious concept by dedicated science reporters and non-science reporters.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Louise Benjamin / In 2013, creating a 57-second video can lead to more than $150,000 in profit for the creator and the creator can be anyone. This money-making opportunity comes from a recent popular trend known as a “viral video,” defined as a phenomenon of a video becoming highly popular through rapid, user-led distribution via the internet. However, research has not determined a clear model for creating a non-professional viral video. Interviews and YouTube analytics revealed how the video “I’m Farming and I Grow It,” a non-professional video created by three Kansas boys, was spread. Using the theories Uses and Gratifications and Two-Step Flow, this case study then analyzed the comments posted on the viral video and a content analysis of the comments identified the key factors mentioned by users, which contributed to the videos’ millions of views. The results conclude the key components for making a non-professional video go viral are “opinion leaders” spreading the message and video content that elicits positive feelings such as joy, humor, or praise. This study also provides a model to help a non-professional video go viral based on previous research and this case study.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Charles W. Sanders / Americans during the first half of the nineteenth-century were obsessed with expansion. God had bestowed upon them an innate superiority in nearly all things. American settlers were culturally, economically, racially and politically superior to all others. But how accurate are such statements? Did a majority of Americans support such declarations? The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how Americans wrote and read about expansion. Doing so reveals that for every citizen extolling the unique greatness of Americans, one questioned such an assumption. For every American insisting that the nation must expand to the Pacific coast to be successful there was one who disdained expansion and sought to industrialize what territory the nation already possessed. Americans during the first half of the nineteenth century were of many minds about expansion. The destiny of the United States was anything but manifest. Using a wealth of nineteenth century newspapers this dissertation demonstrates that the concept of Manifest Destiny was far less popular than previously imagined. Newspapers were the primary source of information and their contents endlessly debated. Editors from around the country expressed their own views and eagerly published pertinent letters to the editor that further detailed how Americans perceived expansion. While many people have often read John O’Sullivan’s rousing words he was not necessarily indicative of American sentiment. For every article espousing the importance of acquiring Florida to deny it to the British there was one deriding the notion because they felt Florida to be nothing but a worthless swamp filled with hostile Indians. American justification and opposition to territorial expansion followed no grand strategy. Instead, its most fascinating characteristic was its dynamic nature. In the Southwest expansionist proponents argued that annexation would liberate the land from Papist masters, while opponents questioned the morality of such a conquest. Encouraging or discouraging territorial expansion could take on innumerable variations and it is this flexible rhetoric that the dissertation focuses upon. The debate that raged in the public forum over expansion was both heated and fascinating. The voices of both pro and anti-expansionists were crucial to the development of antebellum America.

The dissertation develops the concept of repurposing as a means for thinking with activists and the issues they confront. It moves alongside pirate television collective insu^tv as they draw on a variety of histories, traditions and technological resources for their practices. Repurposing functions on multiple levels and at multiple scales, from the recycling of materials and spaces to the harnessing and relaying of encounters and events within an ever-expanding field of social relations. When seen as a way of connecting activist groups and communities, the repurposing of media contributes to strengthening an often fragmented and conflicted activist field. Indeed, insu^tv’s use of information and technology brings to the fore the value of media activism for the creation of social assemblages in which the “media” literally mediates between individuals and among individuals and their environment, instituting and developing an ontogenetic relation (Simondon, 1989). Yet, rather than simply making sense of insu^tv’s practices, the concept of repurposing also provokes a discussion regarding the ethics of connection. For insu^tv, this connective ethics can be understood as a set of rules and principles that facilitate the evaluation of actions, communication, and thought according to an immanent mode of collective existence (Deleuze, 1988; Simondon, 1989). For the author, herself a member of insu^tv and an academic researcher, this immanent position helps challenge traditional models of knowing and envisioning social change and instead proposes alternatives that attend to the singularity and relation among new political movements, and to the political potential of research methods that focus on process and fold activism into academia. The methodology is inspired by the militant research methods of the Italian Autonomia movement (conricerca or inchiesta), as developed and performed by activists themselves. While attending to the complexity of social struggles, the concept of repurposing enables an approach to research and experimentation as modes of sociability, where these modes are themselves repurposed through an ethics of connection. This line informs the relation between ethics and subjectivation, as well as between ethics and micropolitics, facilitating the emergence of new modes of political action through the repurposing of the social field itself.

The dissertation develops the concept of repurposing as a means for thinking with activists and the issues they confront. It moves alongside pirate television collective insu^tv as they draw on a variety of histories, traditions and technological resources for their practices. Repurposing functions on multiple levels and at multiple scales, from the recycling of materials and spaces to the harnessing and relaying of encounters and events within an ever-expanding field of social relations. When seen as a way of connecting activist groups and communities, the repurposing of media contributes to strengthening an often fragmented and conflicted activist field. Indeed, insu^tv’s use of information and technology brings to the fore the value of media activism for the creation of social assemblages in which the “media” literally mediates between individuals and among individuals and their environment, instituting and developing an ontogenetic relation (Simondon, 1989). Yet, rather than simply making sense of insu^tv’s practices, the concept of repurposing also provokes a discussion regarding the ethics of connection. For insu^tv, this connective ethics can be understood as a set of rules and principles that facilitate the evaluation of actions, communication, and thought according to an immanent mode of collective existence (Deleuze, 1988; Simondon, 1989). For the author, herself a member of insu^tv and an academic researcher, this immanent position helps challenge traditional models of knowing and envisioning social change and instead proposes alternatives that attend to the singularity and relation among new political movements, and to the political potential of research methods that focus on process and fold activism into academia. The methodology is inspired by the militant research methods of the Italian Autonomia movement (conricerca or inchiesta), as developed and performed by activists themselves. While attending to the complexity of social struggles, the concept of repurposing enables an approach to research and experimentation as modes of sociability, where these modes are themselves repurposed through an ethics of connection. This line informs the relation between ethics and subjectivation, as well as between ethics and micropolitics, facilitating the emergence of new modes of political action through the repurposing of the social field itself.

This ethnographic study explores the experiences of Ivorian journalists in the context of the 2002-2009 crisis in Abidjan, the economic capital city of Côte d’Ivoire. I present material on the political affiliations of newspapers, the structure of the news industry, the attitudes of journalists, and certain aspects regarding the reception and dissemination of media texts in the streets of Abidjan. My interests lie in analysing the origins and the impacts of the accusations to which journalists of the written press are being subjected concerning their role in the Ivorian conflict. I explore how the crisis has been constructed and construed by and through media agents. I focus on the reflexive moments of journalists and on what their metadiscourses reveal about the context of news production in Côte d’Ivoire. Data was collected through participant-observation and interviews over 18 months of fieldwork in 2003, 2004-2005 and 2006 mainly in three newsrooms in Abidjan. This dissertation questions the emphasis placed upon the role of media in African conflicts, which I term the Rwandan paradigm. The Rwandan paradigm is the reductionist notion that mass media indoctrination plays a decisive role in mobilizing African audiences to commit acts of communal violence. Ultimately, I suggest two avenues to broaden our understanding of the intersection between communication and conflict: 1) a recognition of the complex agency of media producers and their audience; 2) an exploration of alternative media and public spaces.

This ethnographic study explores the experiences of Ivorian journalists in the context of the 2002-2009 crisis in Abidjan, the economic capital city of Côte d’Ivoire. I present material on the political affiliations of newspapers, the structure of the news industry, the attitudes of journalists, and certain aspects regarding the reception and dissemination of media texts in the streets of Abidjan. My interests lie in analysing the origins and the impacts of the accusations to which journalists of the written press are being subjected concerning their role in the Ivorian conflict. I explore how the crisis has been constructed and construed by and through media agents. I focus on the reflexive moments of journalists and on what their metadiscourses reveal about the context of news production in Côte d’Ivoire. Data was collected through participant-observation and interviews over 18 months of fieldwork in 2003, 2004-2005 and 2006 mainly in three newsrooms in Abidjan. This dissertation questions the emphasis placed upon the role of media in African conflicts, which I term the Rwandan paradigm. The Rwandan paradigm is the reductionist notion that mass media indoctrination plays a decisive role in mobilizing African audiences to commit acts of communal violence. Ultimately, I suggest two avenues to broaden our understanding of the intersection between communication and conflict: 1) a recognition of the complex agency of media producers and their audience; 2) an exploration of alternative media and public spaces.

Master of Science / Journalism and Mass Communications / Curtis B. Matthews / Health communication messages have been found to have a significant positive impact on audiences. However, numerous situations exist in which the general population is exposed to information from non-credible sources. This initial exposure can often bias or impact subsequent searching for more information. Vaccinations have been considered effective as a result of the number of lives that have been saved by preventing life threatening diseases. However there is also a growing group of anti-vaccine sources. The rise of the internet has resulted in the growth of numerous unqualified anti-vaccine sources. Nearly 70% of the health information that people find on the internet is from non-credible sources. These messages often take the form of videos in which a person who makes a passionate claim about the side effects of vaccines uses personal experiences (exemplars). These exemplars are used to counter the volumes of scientific and clinical research which show the effectiveness of vaccinations (base-rate information). This study manipulates the usage of passionate and dispassionate exemplars and base-rate information by simulating a real-world situation. Passionate exemplars were the most likely to create fear in our audience. Increasing the passion of our base-rate presenters exhibited both positive and negative side effects.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Robert W. Meeds / This report is based on an exhibition of 37 photographs at the Kemper Gallery in the Student Union of Kansas State University. All photographs presented here and in the exhibit were created during the past 28 years of my career. Hence the exhibit is a mid-career retrospective. My photojournalism experience is very unique in that I am the only photojournalist in the world who has worked as a presidential photographer, published photo essays in National Geographic Magazine as a freelancer, and been on the staff of a large metro newspaper. The photographs chosen for the exhibit were highlighted by, but not limited to, assignments from those three experiences. This report mirrors the exhibit except for a few additional photographs that, because of space limitations, didn’t make it into the final edit for the exhibit. There are three sections: Moments from Kansas to Papua New Guinea, The Presidency, and After 9/11. The “moments” section presents a wide variety of photographs from a wide variety of assignments. The “presidency” section focuses on my tenure as Official White House Photographer for President Reagan, and also includes photographs of the Reagan funeral, other presidents, and a possible future president. “After 9/11” begins at the Pentagon on 9/12, and then follows the course of events in Afghanistan during the following weeks. Extensive captions accompany most of the photographs. The captions are written in the third person which is customary for gallery exhibitions. More than the who, what, where and when, they provide some additional context and are intended to inform both the journalism student and the layperson.