<p> <i>American Dreams: Stories of Millennial Car Culture </i> is a multimedia project that uses photos, videos, and an essay to profile two young men&mdash;German Coello and Corey McKenzie&mdash;involved in two very different types of car culture: stanced Hondas and Volvo rally cars, respectively. The project explores the automotive subculture and racing can have a profound impact on young people in terms of finding personal identity, and building positive and supportive relationships and communities. American Dreams relates stories beyond cars about finding your place in a new country after immigration and finding joy in Appalachian Maryland.</p><p>

This dissertation is a multiethnic exploration of the ways in which contending realisms in the 1930s and 40s attempted to remake "America" within the terrain of popular culture. Unlike in the late 19th century, when American realism was largely intended as a competing mode of representation with an emergent mass culture, the realist-inspired work of the 1930s and 40s I investigate---much of it affiliated with the Popular Front social movement---was produced by individuals who had grown up in a world in which there was virtually no space untouched by the culture industries. Thus I explore what their conscious stance toward mass culture, their authorial position in relation to the culture industries, and their at times unconscious incorporation of mass cultural forms into their realism tell us about the subjectivities they created. Central to this investigation is the relationship between these mass cultural realisms and emergent, official notions of American pluralism, notions embodied domestically in the phrase "We're the People" uttered by Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. Many (but not all) of the cultural workers I cover worked within and against this idea of pluralism, intertwining class, race, and gender to create hybrid subjectivities not generally associated with American culture before the Second World War. Each chapter investigates these dynamics within very disparate instances of midcentury popular culture---in the contending, southern bestsellers of Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Mitchell, in the Hollywood-inspired boxing narratives of Nelson Algren and Clifford Odets, in the struggles of Carlos Bulosan and H. T. Tsiang within an orientalist literary market: and, finally, in the co-optation of Margaret Bourke-White's documentary methods by LIFE magazine. These fusions of realism and mass culture are important to understanding the re-definition of American pluralism at mid-century, as the tradition of American realism carried with it certain epistemologies of what should and should not be visible, and the mass culture of the era diffused that realist-based epistemology to an unprecedented degree, converting it, albeit temporarily, into a "common sense." I argue, ultimately, that the tradition of American realism both enabled and constrained a more inclusive notion of "the people."

Radio's first fifteen years were filled with experiment and innovation, as well as conflicting visions of what broadcasting's role in society ought to be. But while there was an ongoing debate about radio's mission (should it be mainly educational or mainly entertaining?), radio's impact on daily life was undeniable. To cite a few examples, radio was the first mass medium to provide access to current events as they were happening. It allowed people of all races and social classes to hear great orators, news-makers, and entertainers. Radio not only brought hit songs and famous singers directly into the listener's home; it also created a new form of intimacy based on imagination—although the listeners generally had never met the men and women they heard on the air, they felt close to these people and imagined what they must really be like. Radio was a medium that enhanced the importance of the human voice-- politicians, preachers, and performers were now judged by their ability to communicate with the "invisible audience." My dissertation employs a media ecology perspective to examine how the arrival and growth of radio altered a media environment that, until 1920, was dominated by the printed word. Neil Postman, a seminal figure in Media Ecology, wrote that this field of inquiry "looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value." Radio certainly exemplified that description: it not only affected popular culture and public opinion; it affected the other media with which it competed. My research utilizes one of those competing media—print journalism. Using content and discourse analysis of articles in thirty-three newspapers and sixteen magazines of the 1920s and early 1930s, I examine how print and radio interacted and affected each other. My dissertation also analyzes the differing perceptions about radio as expressed in print by fans, reporters, and such interest groups as clergy or educators. And finally, my research explores some of the critiques of the programs, and compares the reactions of the critics at the mainstream press with those who worked for the ethnic press.

<p> For decades, there has been a concern with the negative framing of black women in the media. Historically, black women are placed into four stereotypical frames: The Mammy, The Jezebel, The Sapphire and The Matriarch. However, in 2008, a new image of black women arose through Michelle Obama. She was well rounded &mdash; beautiful, intelligent, insightful, humorous, strong, yet soft all at the same time. This study seeks to understand the changes in the framing of black women since Michelle Obama&rsquo;s time as First Lady.</p><p> More specifically, this study focuses on the medium of magazine journalism, which seems to be largely ignored in the realm of media studies. Thirty articles from a mainstream (<i>Glamour</i>) and a black women&rsquo;s magazine (<i>Essence</i>) were analyzed for the presence of historical frames along with the emergence of new ones. The study employs the qualitative method of textual analysis as a way to determine frames and their meanings through a grounded theory approach.</p><p> The primary outcomes of this study are a greater understanding of how historical frames still affect how magazines, mainstream and black, frame black women, and the revealing of new frames that depart from those historical representations. Furthermore, this study will be used as a foundation for editors, writers, educators and students alike, to create more authentic and multifaceted stories about black women.</p><p>