A fear appeal has become a common way to describe a message created by individuals, groups, or entities to achieve an array of social and political goals. For instance, law firms may use fear-based advertisements on television by listing several debilitating diseases to educate potential clients about the side effects of certain drugs. In the realm of politics, candidates may use fear-based appeals in their messages as well: certain Republican candidates use the fear of attacks similar to the ones of September 11, 2001, to scare the American people into voting for the candidate who would best protect the country from another tragedy. On the other side of the political aisle, Democrats tap into elements of fear promoting the idea that their political opponents are encouraging a war on women or an elimination of the middle-class due to favorable economic policies aimed at the wealthy. Are these messages, however, actually producing fear in audiences? Results of this dissertation, specifically those results gathered in Chapter IV, suggest that fear is the primary emotion respondents report after viewing a threat-based political advertisement. In this dissertation, I explore studies of demographics and emotions to see how much of a role, if any, group affiliations play on respondents reports of felt emotions, specifically the emotion of fear. I also examine a prominent political advertisement from the 2012 Republican primaries designed to instill fear, worry, or anxiety in its audience. I argue that audience responses to so-called fear appeals are based more in socialization and group affiliation than due to a biological reaction of fear to a certain stimulus brought about in the message. In fact, much more so than fear, disgust is the primary emotion respondents report feeling in response to watching the infamous political advertisement from the 2012 U.S. presidential campaigns referred to above. Limitations of the study and areas for future research are discussed in the final chapter.

This study explores recent attempts by the hip hop community to be recognized in the mainstream political sphere and to have its concerns acknowledged and addressed. This project examines how the scholarship of hip hop (musicology), rhetoric (counterpublic spheres), politics and social movement theory intertwine, and to demonstrate how hip hops community can emerge as a counterpublic sphere that could become a social movement capable of altering the current cultural and political landscape in the United States. Although hip hop as a culture consists of four major elements: breakdancing, graffiti art, deejaying, and rapping, this study focuses on rappers and the use of rap music in the political sphere. It suggests that hip hop is a counterpublic sphere that has the power to affect culture and politics and examines attempts by both liberal and conservative politicians and organizations to garner the hip hop communitys vote. It then discusses political opportunity theory and suggests that it may help the hip hop community emerge as a social movement capable of seizing its political opportunities. It relies upon the rhetorical work of the counterpublic sphere theory as a result of the hip hop community seeking a voice and recognition in the political public sphere. This serves as one of the basis for creating a counterpublic sphere.

The overarching goal of this project is to argue that folk punk performances offer spaces where a listening audience is exposed to a radical and intersectional politics, and enable that audience to identify with those views. By considering the performances of Inky Skulls, Pussy Riot!, and Against Me!, this study looks to the ways in which these folk punk exemplars highlight elements of the radical politics of the American left and in the history of folk and punk music. In particular, this project considers the intersections of race and class, women and nonhuman animals, and queerness and anarchism, as intersecting points of ideological convergence. The secondary goals of this project are two-fold. The first aim is to articulate a performative approach to folk punk music, as a scene worthy of academic consideration. The second aim is to consider the ways in which my personal experiences at folk punk shows highlight the idiosyncratic and utopian ways in which small performatives in the genre shape the identities of audience members and fans.

The purpose of this study was to construct a training program designed specifically for college students struggling with Communication Apprehension in the public speaking context. Research has consistently found that perceived responsiveness acts as one form of social support, and social support has been found to decrease stress (Maisel, Gable, & Strachman, 2008). Given the fact that anxiety is stressful, the purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between perceived responsiveness of an audience and CA. Using data from an earlier pilot study measuring for correlation between CA and perceived responsiveness in one‟s close relational partner, and using several focus groups as means for additional analysis, a training module was developed that provides responsiveness training as a means to reduce speech anxiety. The training plan modeled that of Beebe, Mottet, & Roach‟s (2013) Needs Centered Training Model, due to it‟s high needs centered approach (Beebe, Mottet, & Roach, 2013).

The international SlutWalk protest phenomena emerged in 2011 in Toronto, Canada as a feminist movement determined to speak out against two key aspects of rape culture: slut-shaming and victim-blaming. SlutWalk protesters simultaneously advocate a sex-positive stance while lashing back at rape culture. This thesis examines SlutWalks as a form of modern protest that utilizes the Internet to create a membership of mostly young people working within third wave feminist theoretical frames. The role of online organizing is examined for its potential for globalization from below, and the limitations of the digital divide are explored. Additionally, the reclamation of slut is seen as a key rhetorical move of SlutWalk protesters. The author examines three forms of reclamation present in protest, and examines the potential and limitations of each. It is argued that SlutWalk uses synecdochal framing on two levels that both enable and constrain the protests. Issues of representation are explored as they relate to individuals at various standpoints and intersections with rape culture. It is argued that tensions between resistance and control exist, especially as they relate to individuals most marginalized and oppressed by discourses of rape culture. Overall, the author argues that SlutWalks revive consciousness-raising in the third wave of feminism and work to deconstruct oppressive discourses in society. However, the limitation of SlutWalk to speak for all women, especially women of color, is of serious consideration for imagining feminist futures that build coalitions and work in solidarity with other feminist organizing efforts.

The construction of expectations has long been relegated and confined to psychological inquiry. This creates a deficit in research that necessitates a qualitative examination of how interpersonal discourse reflects and constructs mothering expectations. This study seeks to describe the relational construction of expectations of the ideal mother. Elicited dyadic interactions were analyzed on three major dimensions, including linguistics, communications, and narratives. Linguistic analysis revealed that conversations tended to be more positively valenced, uncertain, and presently oriented. Additionally, these findings gave a gross description of negotiation strategies in which participants engaged when coming to agreement. Participants engaging in the narrative negotiation constructed stories with repetitive themes including the qualities (―who a mother is‖) and actions (―what a mother does‖) of a mother.

This dissertation presents a dramatistic critique of the various crises and challenges assaulting United States soldiers and the current U.S. construction of warrior heroism through the theoretical lens of Equipment for Dying. Equipment for Dying theorizes that each specific crisis or challenge faced is a contemporary incarnation of an archetypal challenged faced by all soldiers and the societies that send them to war. Therefore, the dramatic form of the myth of the heroic warrior provides models and guidelines for interpreting and responding to the deaths of the soldier: physical, psychological, or economic. As a theoretical frame, Equipment for Dying seeks to answer the question: How are we to respond when Johnny doesnt come marching home but is instead carried home on a stretcher, wheeled home while wearing a straightjacket, or borne home in a casket. To accomplish this ambitious task, this dissertation discusses various discourses that speak about heroism and the crises surrounding U.S. soldiers the cinematic trope of the shell-shocked soldier, the TALOS suit project, the argument to private veteran health care, the move to rename Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the suicide of Daniel Somers setting each alongside a particular episode in heroic myth, using the Anglo-Saxon epic of Beowulf as a model, to show how the heroic myth both prepares society for the probability of such situations but provides a rhetorical strategy for responding to these situations in keeping with societys values.

Syftet till den här uppsatsen är att undersöka hur konsumenters allmänna inställning till influencer marketing ser ut och om Instagram-användare köper produkter som rekommenderas av influencers. Studien har gjorts genom en kvantitativ anonym enkätundersökning på internet. Studien är gjord utifrån Elihu Katz och Paul Lazarsfelds studie om tvåstegshypotesen, samt kommunikationsformen word-of-mouth. Jag har även valt att göra min studie utifrån forskning om traditionell reklam. Resultatet av den här studien visar att konsumenter generellt har en neutral inställning till influencer marketing. Den visar också att Instagram-användarna köper produkter som rekommenderas av influencers, men det är fortfarande rekommendationer från vänner, det vill säga word-of-mouth som har övertaget.

In recent years, the country of Turkey has seen both political and economic turbulences. University students frequently were central players in anti-government protest, displaying significant levels of discontent with the status quo. In 2018, the first elections after the constitutional referendum was held, ringing in a new era for Turkey. This research aims to find out, how this new reality affects the identity and identity formation of university students in Istanbul. To do that, the study employs the concepts of social identity and identity formation as well as local and translocal spatiality. For that, an ethnographic study was conducted. The study follows 7 university students from Istanbul through their daily life and processes oral accounts, observational data and artifacts - both from a personal and general context. The analysis reveals, how students construct their identities reflexively in opposition to a perceived threat by a majority identity. Students spatialize their identity both in relation to the local spaces of Istanbul - and translocal spaces employing modern communication tools. The identity of students is primarily contested through the sociopolitical – but also the urban-capitalistic realities of living in Istanbul.

Agile methods for software development have become a well-known and trendy phenomenon since the turn of the millennium. Now, agile management methods are even starting to appear outside of the IT industry. We have interviewed and observed ten employees at a medium-sized system development company with the purpose to investigate how the meetings appear to the employees. We thereby aim to answer the question “What meaning does the stand-up meeting have for its participants?” The results are analyzed and discussed through Robert D. McPhee’s CCO-theory The Four Flows. We conclude that the meetings provide many potential benefits for coordinating activities, but that this depends upon the participants taking initiatives, focusing on relevant aspects of their own work and being familiar with the topics at hand. The respondents value the sense of overview and help in problem solving that the meetings provide. Still, what is being said during the meetings can sometimes be hard to understand. Participants generally have their membership negotiated in a way that includes them in the organization. However, new employees often experience initial comprehension difficulties. The daily stand-up is a place for organizational reflexive self-structuring mainly in the sense meetings enforces a sense of unity within the group. Institutional positioning however is not a predominant feature of this particular meeting routine. This study contributes to agile development communication in that it highlights the need for clarification regarding the goals of the daily stand-up-meetings, and that comprehensive difficulties should be addressed, not least for new employees.