This thesis explores representations of Africans in the American media coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the differing policy solutions they sometimes elicit. I hypothesize that there is a connection between identity construction and policy solutions that can be explored along two major trajectories. First, I find sources that prefer "othering" stereotypes of Africans in their coverage often produce "securitized" solutions. I explore this trend through literature that links identity, geography, and infectious diseases constructing an image of an "infectious other". From the "French" disease to the "Spanish" flu, the association of disease and geography is a longstanding one that again is manifested with the Ebola virus (Harrison 2014). "Othered" from "civilized" and healthy populations, the people that inhabited these "dangerous" and "infected" areas became similarly stereotyped. In comparison to the first category, I find sources in the second trajectory that undertake a societal and structural analysis of the outbreak often favor approaches aimed at improving access to healthcare for the affected populations. Doctor Paul Farmer's work informs this section of examination. I conclude the thesis by briefly posing a few questions for future research as well as examining the Ebola virus in relation to the Zika virus. / Master of Arts

This thesis attempts to explain the political communication process in relation to blogs. The first concern of the thesis is the relationship between conventional media and blogs with regards to the political communication. The thesis will use both first and second level agenda-setting theory to explore the relationship between conventional media and political blogs. In addition, this study aims to investigate blog users' media use and political involvement in comparison to non-users.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Donald J. Mrozek / In the fall of 1934 Major General Smedley Butler, U.S.M.C. (ret.) testified before Congress that he had been approached by a representative of a cabal of wealthy Wall Street bankers, powerful industrial magnates, and shady political operatives to lead a fascist coup to overthrow the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Congress investigated Butler’s allegations of a conspiracy against the government and deemed them to be true. The American news media, however, was noticeably divided in the nature of their coverage of the congressional investigation. Previous historians have claimed that elements of the American news media were markedly sympathetic toward fascism in the United States during the 1930s. An analysis of the newspaper coverage of this investigation reveals a stark contrast between ways in which media outlets headed by individuals suspected of fascist sympathies portrayed the story as opposed to media outlets known to be editorially anti-fascist. These findings lend credence to previous historians’ claims about identifiably pro-fascist strains in the American media during the time in question.

During the 2008-2009 War on Gaza between Hamas and Israel, the Arab and American media published various sensational images of this terrorist event. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and examine the ethicality of the Arab and American sensational images when covering a terrorist event perpetuated by the Other. The thesis draws on Aristotle’s theory of communication and virtue theory (fourth century B.C.), William James’s theory of truth (1907), as well as on contemporary theories, approaches and concepts in order to provide a philosophical and theoretical foundation of ethical publication of sensational images. As well, it looks into various definitions of terrorism, analyzes the Arab and American media codes of ethics, and benefits from relevant decision-making models. It has, therefore, established a theoretical model contingent to the terrorist event at stake – The Sensational Image of Terrorism Ethical Decision-Making Model (SITE-DMM). The thesis methodologically utilizes a qualitative comparative content analysis research design, analyzing a purposive sample of 144 sensational images from three Arab online media (Al-Ahram newspaper, Electronic Intifada, and Al-Jazeera.net TV); and three American online media (The New York Times newspaper, San Francisco Sentinel.com, and CNN.com TV) in order to examine the ethicality of publishing sensational images about this terrorist event in both the Arab and American media. Following a systematic analysis, guided by the suggested theoretical model – SITE-DMM, the findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the ethicality of the Arab and American sensational images during the coverage of the 2008-2009 War on Gaza.

During the 2008-2009 War on Gaza between Hamas and Israel, the Arab and American media published various sensational images of this terrorist event. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and examine the ethicality of the Arab and American sensational images when covering a terrorist event perpetuated by the Other. The thesis draws on Aristotle’s theory of communication and virtue theory (fourth century B.C.), William James’s theory of truth (1907), as well as on contemporary theories, approaches and concepts in order to provide a philosophical and theoretical foundation of ethical publication of sensational images. As well, it looks into various definitions of terrorism, analyzes the Arab and American media codes of ethics, and benefits from relevant decision-making models. It has, therefore, established a theoretical model contingent to the terrorist event at stake – The Sensational Image of Terrorism Ethical Decision-Making Model (SITE-DMM). The thesis methodologically utilizes a qualitative comparative content analysis research design, analyzing a purposive sample of 144 sensational images from three Arab online media (Al-Ahram newspaper, Electronic Intifada, and Al-Jazeera.net TV); and three American online media (The New York Times newspaper, San Francisco Sentinel.com, and CNN.com TV) in order to examine the ethicality of publishing sensational images about this terrorist event in both the Arab and American media. Following a systematic analysis, guided by the suggested theoretical model – SITE-DMM, the findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the ethicality of the Arab and American sensational images during the coverage of the 2008-2009 War on Gaza.

During the 2008-2009 War on Gaza between Hamas and Israel, the Arab and American media published various sensational images of this terrorist event. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and examine the ethicality of the Arab and American sensational images when covering a terrorist event perpetuated by the Other. The thesis draws on Aristotle’s theory of communication and virtue theory (fourth century B.C.), William James’s theory of truth (1907), as well as on contemporary theories, approaches and concepts in order to provide a philosophical and theoretical foundation of ethical publication of sensational images. As well, it looks into various definitions of terrorism, analyzes the Arab and American media codes of ethics, and benefits from relevant decision-making models. It has, therefore, established a theoretical model contingent to the terrorist event at stake – The Sensational Image of Terrorism Ethical Decision-Making Model (SITE-DMM). The thesis methodologically utilizes a qualitative comparative content analysis research design, analyzing a purposive sample of 144 sensational images from three Arab online media (Al-Ahram newspaper, Electronic Intifada, and Al-Jazeera.net TV); and three American online media (The New York Times newspaper, San Francisco Sentinel.com, and CNN.com TV) in order to examine the ethicality of publishing sensational images about this terrorist event in both the Arab and American media. Following a systematic analysis, guided by the suggested theoretical model – SITE-DMM, the findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the ethicality of the Arab and American sensational images during the coverage of the 2008-2009 War on Gaza.

During the 2008-2009 War on Gaza between Hamas and Israel, the Arab and American media published various sensational images of this terrorist event. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and examine the ethicality of the Arab and American sensational images when covering a terrorist event perpetuated by the Other. The thesis draws on Aristotle’s theory of communication and virtue theory (fourth century B.C.), William James’s theory of truth (1907), as well as on contemporary theories, approaches and concepts in order to provide a philosophical and theoretical foundation of ethical publication of sensational images. As well, it looks into various definitions of terrorism, analyzes the Arab and American media codes of ethics, and benefits from relevant decision-making models. It has, therefore, established a theoretical model contingent to the terrorist event at stake – The Sensational Image of Terrorism Ethical Decision-Making Model (SITE-DMM). The thesis methodologically utilizes a qualitative comparative content analysis research design, analyzing a purposive sample of 144 sensational images from three Arab online media (Al-Ahram newspaper, Electronic Intifada, and Al-Jazeera.net TV); and three American online media (The New York Times newspaper, San Francisco Sentinel.com, and CNN.com TV) in order to examine the ethicality of publishing sensational images about this terrorist event in both the Arab and American media. Following a systematic analysis, guided by the suggested theoretical model – SITE-DMM, the findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the ethicality of the Arab and American sensational images during the coverage of the 2008-2009 War on Gaza.

This study analyzes Virgilio Piñera’s concept of performance in relation to his representation of mass media products and technologies. The central argument is that Piñera’s notion of theatrical representation connects fiction with politics in subversive ways, challenging assumptions of naturalness at different levels, from that of the gendered self, to the family and the nation. To support this argument, the study focuses on Piñera’s representation of a variety of mass media genres as these inspire everyday life performances, mainly in Cuba but also in Argentina. While fictional models and sentimental narratives from the mass media most often convey oppressive conceptions of gender, family, and nation, the author’s representation of the media’s pervasive influence questions and denaturalizes those conceptions. Piñera stresses the disruptive potential of individual performance against the repetitive character of both the mass media industry and the social reenactments of its sentimental myths. His references to mass culture thus destabilize structures of power, including stereotypes of both sexuality and gender. The analysis shows that Piñera’s fictions exhibit important characteristics of queer aesthetics. The study comprises a time span of almost three decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1960s, and focuses on a selection of Piñera’s criticism, drama, poetry, and narrative. Within those texts, special attention is given to references to photography, radio programs, romance novels, movies, and popular music. The organization of Piñera’s texts in this study answers to both thematic and chronological considerations. Chapter 1 outlines the study’s objectives and methodology, also providing a background on critical studies about Piñera. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with plays and short-stories written before the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Chapter 2 examines texts that represent both family and nation in relation to a variety of mass media genres, from Cuban “radionovelas” to Hollywood gangster films. Chapter 3 focuses on two narratives, written in Buenos Aires, that address posing and self-representation in relation to issues of sexuality, masculinity, and power. Chapter 4 deals with a selection of poems written, for the most part, after 1959. In these poems, the literary use of photography stresses theatrical self-representation, often in direct resistance to revolutionary reformulations of masculinity in the figure of the “New Man.” / text

This study investigates the discursive ways in which the Syrian war and the Syrian refugees are being portrayed in the American news media. It was conducted by combining the method Corpus Linguistics with the concepts of Critical Discourse Analysis. The data for this research consists of a virtual sub-corpus created from the NOW (News on the Web) corpus, hosted by English-Corpora. The virtual corpus contains all the data from the NOW corpus with the word SYRIA* in the title and the words SYRIA* and REFUGEE* weref urther investigated by the use of concordance, collocate and KWIC tools. The results for SYRIA* showed that the Syrian war was not the prime focus for media coverage and were therefore underrepresented. The collocations around REFUGEE* demonstrated that the conceptual metaphor REFUGEES ARE WATER, and by extension, REFUGEES ARE A DISASTER, were mapped onto the Syrian refugees. Consequently, the nuisance and inconvenience of the refugees was emphasised and represented them negatively.

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