Scholars have heretofore under-examined William Makepeace Thackeray's early critical essays despite their potential for illuminating Victorian manners and life. Further, these essays' treatments of aesthetics, class, society, history, and politics are all influenced by the pecuniary aspects of periodical journalism and frequently expose socio-economic attitudes and realities. This study explicates the circumstances, contents, and cultural implications of Thackeray's critical essays. Compensatory payments Thackeray received are reconciled with his bibliographic record, questions regarding Thackeray's interactions with periodicals such as Punch and Fraser's Magazine answered, and a database of the payment practices of early Victorian periodicals established. Thackeray's contributions to leading London newspapers, the Times and the Morning Chronicle, address history, travel, art, literature, religion, and international affairs. Based upon biblio-economic payment records, cross-references, and other information, Thackeray's previously skeletal newspaper bibliographic record is fleshed out with twenty-eight new attributions. With this new information in hand, Thackeray's views on colonial emigration and imperialism, international affairs, religion, medievalism, Ireland, the East, and English middle-class identity are clarified. Further, Thackeray wrote a series of social and political "London" letters for an Indian newspaper, the Calcutta Star. This dissertation establishes that Thackeray's letters were answered in print by "colonial" letters written by James Hume, editor of the Calcutta Star; their mutual correspondence thus constitutes a revealing cosmopolitan - colonial discourse. The particulars of Thackeray's Calcutta Star writings are established, insights into the personalities and viewpoints of both men provided, and societal aspects of their correspondence analyzed. In his many newspaper art exhibition reviews Thackeray popularized serious painting and shaped middle-class taste. The nature and timing of Thackeray's art essays are assessed, espoused values characterized and earlier analyses critiqued, and Thackeray's role introducing middle-class readers to contemporary Victorian art explored. Other Thackeray newspaper reviews addressed literature; indeed, Thackeray's grounding of literature in economic realities demonstrably carried over from his critical thesiss to his subsequent work as a novelist, creating a unity of theme, style, and subject between his early and late writings. Literary pathways originating in Thackeray's critical reviews are shown to offer new insights into Thackeray novels Catherine, Vanity Fair, Henry Esmond, and Pendennis.

La presse locale est en pleine mutation. Actrice majeure de la constitution d'un espace public territorialisé, elle subit la dématérialisation des contenus sans avoir trouvé encore sa voie. Les journalistes localiers, au premier plan, endurent les bouleversements en cours. Les entreprises de presse locale se transforment progressivement en groupes multimédias. Ces mutations économiques perturbent les localiers. Le constat de l'évolution vers le journalisme de communication a déjà été établi pour les presses nationale ou internationale, nous proposons de l'étudier au niveau de la presse infra-nationale en France. Ces transformations socio-économiques, qui s'inscrivent dans le processus d'évolution des industries culturelles et médiatiques, altèrent les discours, les pratiques et l'identité professionnelle des localiers. Le marketing et la dématérialisation des contenus journalistiques fonctionnent alors comme des rouages d'un mécanisme plus large qui impacte les rédactions locales. Les directions de ces groupes multimédias, à travers plusieurs stratégies managériales, agissent sur les représentations des localiers. C'est dans ce contexte que se créent de nouveaux mythes : le passé du groupe professionnel, les lecteurs et les relations au territoire sont repensés. Leur identité professionnelle se trouve ainsi tiraillée entre la volonté de maintien des valeurs initiales du groupe professionnel et les adaptations imposées par leur situation actuelle. / French local press is changing. Major actor of a territorialized public space, it suffers of digitalization of news. Also, local press companies progressively turn into multimedia groups. At the forefront, local journalists are upset by these fundamental changes. This dissertation tries to show the influences of local press groups’ economical mutation into multimedia groups on local journalists. The evolution of communication journalism had been established for national or global presses; we propose to study this phenomenon at the local press level in France. These economic transformations change speeches, practices and professional identity of local journalists. They adhere in the general reflexion on cultural and media industry studies. Marketing and digitalization of journalists productions operate as mechanisms of a total dispositive which impact local newsrooms. General directions of multimedia groups, through several management strategies, try to modify local journalists representations. In this context, new mythologies appear: journalists rewrite the history of their professional group, establish new myths about their readers and rebuild on line the relationships with their territory. Therefore, their professional identity is upset in two different ways. On the one hand, they want to keep their first positions and maintain their prerogatives. On the other hand, local journalists accept important concessions to upgrade their position in their multimedia groups.

Southern Appalachian attitudes about the religion of Islam and Muslim adherents are influenced largely by mass media's representations. With more than 80% of Appalachia’s population following Protestant Christianity, exposure to Islam in daily life is limited. Media outlets offer the greatest exposure to information about the religion and its adherents. This thesis examined the region's media representation of Islam and Muslims to determine what images are most often portrayed. Research following a twoyear span of reporting in Southern Appalachia studied substance, word frequency, imagery, and editing used in articles that focused on Islam and Muslims. Through the use of content analysis examining rural and metropolitan news circulated in the area, the study found significant use of negative words and phrases in reporting about Islam and Muslims. Newsroom editing of articles also had a considerable damaging effect on how reports represented Islam and Muslims.

This study was an investigation of the effect of political advertising on readers’ perceived bias and credibility of an online news article based on participants’ political leanings. Media priming and the hostile media effect were the theoretical underpinnings. Participants were asked to read an unbiased news article placed alongside 3 advertisements. Participants were put into 1 of 3 conditions — right-leaning advertisements, left-leaning advertisements, or neutral advertisements. They then answered questions about the perceived bias and credibility of the article and their own political affiliation. The researchers hypothesized that left-leaning individuals would perceive the article with right-leaning advertisements as biased and less credible and the opposite would be true of right-leaning individuals. Results were not consistent with hypotheses but trended in the expected directions.

The Mexican Herald, an English language newspaper in Mexico City during the authoritative rule of Porfirio Díaz (1895-1910), sought to introduce a vision of Mexico's development that would influence how Mexicans conceived of their country's political and cultural place within a community that transcended national boundaries. As Mexicans experienced rapid modernization led partially by foreign investors, the Herald represented the imaginings of its editors and their efforts to influence how Mexicans conceptualized their national identity and place in the world. The newspaper's editors idealized a Mexico that would follow the international model of the United States and embrace Pan-Americanism. The Herald's depictions of the ideal, future city provided an intelligible landscape to modernity. The editors' vision of modernity had significant implications for Mexican culture. The newspaper's articles and illustrations defined the parameters of modernity providing clear depictions of the physical, political, and cultural aspects of the community of modern nations.

Many historians refer to the Armenian Genocide of 1915 as the first genocide of the twentieth century. In the context of the first global war, the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were systematically persecuted and many eliminated while the world watched. Yet today, American memory and conception of the Armenian Genocide is remarkably different from similar historical events such as the Holocaust. The Armenian Genocide and America's reaction to it is a forgotten event in American memory. In an attempt to better understand this process of forgetting, this thesis analyzes the Washington Post's news coverage of the Armenian Genocide. By cataloguing, categorizing, and analysizing this news coverage, this thesis suggests Americans had sufficient information about the events and national reaction to it to form a memory. Therefore, the reasons for twenty-first century collective loss of memory in the minds of Americans must be traced to other sources.

NASCAR has become one of America's fastest growing spectator sports, and corporate sponsors have played an important part in this upsurge in popularity. Race teams, drivers, and sanctioning bodies use the income that sponsors provide to operate at NASCAR events. This study provides an analysis of how corporate sponsorships have changed the way that NASCAR is presented in print journalism. Using Burke's method of indexing, NASCAR-related titles in the New York Times and the Johnson City Press from 1950 to present day are analyzed. The analysis reveals not only a steady increase in the number of NASCAR-related titles, but 4 indices of meaning that are most often used (Specific Races/Locations, NASCAR, Specific Names, and Sponsors) and that organizations should consider before they plan to promote their products using NASCAR.

The intent of this thesis is to discuss the manner in which four black newspapers covered the U.S. Masters Tournament, hosted annually at the Augusta National Golf Club, Georgia, from 1994 through 2001. The four black newspapers include two from the North, the New Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender, and two from the South, the Atlanta Voice and the Birmingham Times. It is my contention that U.S. Masters coverage in the aforementioned black papers is dependent upon the presence of Tiger Woods. Without Woods' participation at the Masters, coverage of the event would be diminished in the four black newspapers. The years 1994 through 2001 (excluding the Birmingham Times which was only microfilmed to 1999) have been analyzed in each of the four newspapers in order to present my case. The thesis proves that to the four black newspapers Tiger Woods is the deciding factor in its Masters coverage.

In 1872, Mormon plural wife, educator, and suffragist Lucinda Lee Dalton began writing fiery political essays and insightful poetry for the Woman's Exponent from her small community in southern Utah. Through her writings Dalton endeavors to shape the opinions of Exponent readers by working within public discourse toward the goal of equality for women. At times both optimistic and troubled, she uses the rhetorical strategies of humor, irony, reason, identification, and persuasion to educate men and women on disparities and to encourage women to participate actively in their own emancipation. She often engages in a dialogical process with other writers by crafting both polemic and poetic responses to specific writings in order to work toward greater insight on critical issues. As an essayist Dalton defends her religion, calls for the expansion of women's political and economic opportunities, and asserts that the elevation of women is crucial to achieving the potential of both sexes. As a poet she is a compelling writer who reveals in her poems her apprehensions and aspirations, her faith and feminism. Much of her poetry reflects the same commitment to reform that is clear in her essays, and she uses both genres do effective political work. This thesis uses a pluralist approach to recover Lu Dalton as an important early Mormon writer. It articulates her merit as a representative voice by evaluating the historical context and rhetorical function of her published writings in which she actively calls for broad societal reform, writing on women's roles, political rights, and relationship with God and men.

In March 2020, Tom Hanks announced he had contracted COVID-19 while shooting the Elvis Presley Biopic in Australia. On Instagram, he encouraged fans to take the disease seriously and be aware of how severe of a disease it was. Character brands and nostalgia have been found to foster trust in products and encourage relationships with those brands. Using the lens of nostalgia and uses and gratification to examine Tom Hanks as a character brand, the researcher analyzed five blockbuster films with Tom Hanks as the lead character. The study used narrative thematic analysis to observe Hanks and the depictions of character identity, trauma, mortality, affectional emotion, memory, and catharsis in these films. The goal was to better understand how nostalgia might contribute to brand trust between the audience and the celebrity.