The home of the Provo Times and Enquirer was a typical Mormon town founded on the east shore of Utah Lake in 1849. While some Gentiles (non-Mormons) had moved into the area by 1873 when the first newspaper appeared, the community was still dominated and controlled by members of the Latter-day Saint Church, which was the cause of some tension.Even though after twenty-four years of settlement Provo had well-established farms, businesses, and the beginnings of industry, it did not have a newspaper, although publications had been founded earlier in several other cities of the territory. In the winter of 1872-73 John C. Graham, a prominent Salt Lake City actor and journalist, saw newspaper possibilities in Provo and laid the foundations for the establishment of the Provo Daily Times. Graham was not able to participate in the actual founding because of a Church mission call to England. He did interest others, however, and the first issue appeared August 1, 1873, with four owner-editors listed: R. T. McEwan, R. G. Sleater, O. F. Lyons, and J. T. McEwan.In April of 1874 the paper was changed to a tri-weekly, and in August of the same year a joint stock company was formed in an attempt to ease financial strain. Due to lack of patronage and after a controversy with the City Council over a charge of police negligence, the Times ceased publication in December of 1875.Two former editors of the Times, Robert Sleater and Joseph McEwan, founded the semi-weekly Utah County Enquirer with the first issue appearing July 4, 1876. McEwan dropped out in June, 1877, and Sleater, unable to make a living from the paper, soon sold it to the recently returned John C. Graham.The new editor assumed ownership of the County Enquirer September 5, 1877, and shortly after changed the name to the Territorial Enquirer. The paper prospered under Graham for ten years; then in order to enlarge facilities it was incorporated in November of 1887 and soon renamed the Utah Enquirer. In December, 1889, a Daily Enquirer appeared, with the Utah Enquirer continuing as a weekly country edition. The Enquirers lived until shortly after Graham's death in 1906, when the plant was sold and the name changed.

To write a descriptive, chronological history of Manti journalists and their newspapers was the purpose of this study. A century of journalism was traced, during which twenty-six editors and publishers printed six country newspapers. The study covered the years from 1867 to 1967.

The Church News supplement to the Deseret News has been part of the Salt Lake City newspaper for over fifty years. It has evolved from a weekly eight-page tabloid religious section of the daily newspaper to a weekly magazine of feature articles, photographs, editorials and news of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. An historical study of the Church News has not been done previously. Hence, the intent of this study is to observe how the Church News has served its purposes and goals over its history. The study briefly outlines how the publication has developed and will serve as a springboard for further independent studies in the various areas of interest such as Church News editorials, circulation and advertising. The following study is not intended to be an empirical, scientific analysis of the Church News. Research began with no preconceived notions of outcome or hypotheses. It is designed as a descriptive historical overview of the Church Section of the Deseret News.

On Oct. 2, 2016, against all predictions, Colombian voters rejected a proposed peace deal with FARC rebels that would have marked the end of a 50-year-old internal conflict. Similar to what happened after the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump's election in the United States that same year, the unexpected results of the Colombian peace referendum resulted in a wave of media criticism. This study examines this body of criticism in the Colombian case through qualitative, critical thematic analysis of published media criticism that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the vote and semi-directed interviews with Colombian journalists who personally covered the referendum. The findings show that a metajournalistic discourse of media failure materialized following the vote, with potential implications for the local journalistic culture. Three dimensions are identified in the journalists' responses to this discourse. They acknowledge that errors and poor journalistic habits were present in the vote's coverage; they push back by identifying external pressures to journalism that caused systemic media failures; and they speak with ambivalence about persisting journalistic practices and norms, showing willingness to revisit some of them in their own practice. A discussion based on the findings links theoretical scholarship on the Brexit and Trump's cases to the Colombian vote by showing that the experience of covering the referendum, and the ensuing criticism that the media sustained, opened the door for journalists to engage in a debate over the merits of objectivity, just like the two other cases did in their respective contexts. A situated analysis that takes into account the local context of Colombia's journalistic culture proposes new angles to this debate. It suggests that internal changes in that culture, such as the demise of an organization that used to champion peace activism in journalism, has resulted in changes to how journalists understand and apply the objectivity norm when covering matters of conflict and peace. This raises the question of whether material conditions in any given journalistic context may influence how journalists understand and apply objectivity, thus contributing new insights to the ongoing debate on the merits of this norm not just in the Colombian context but globally as well.

In a broad sense, public relations is the communication between an organization and its audience. Public relations helps create and maintain a relationship between the two. When an organization experiences a success or failure public relations is put into place to help rally public support. The intent of this thesis aims to determine the tone of President Obama in U.S. newspapers and social media in association with the capturing and killing of terrorist Osama bin Laden. This thesis examines a variety of U.S. newspapers by region and social media. Newspaper articles related to the topic were retrieved from six regional newspapers: Columbus Dispatch, Houston Chronicle, Charlotte Observer, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post. From these papers, a specific time period was chosen to examine articles. The months of April, June, and August 2012 were chosen. During these months, a keyword search for “osama bin laden” was used. Articles that contained this keyword were then examined and coded. Blogs and Facebook pages of the Republican and Democratic Party were examined. Two political blogs, Daily Kos and Red State, were chosen. From these blogs and Facebook pages, the same time period was chosen as for the newspapers. The keyword search was also the same, “osama bin laden”.

The following is a study on the effects of framing the topic of concussions in the sports media. The study examined the differences between “perceptions of seriousness” of concussions based on two article conditions and how men and women, athletes and non-athletes, sports fans and non-sports fans all viewed the seriousness of concussions. Other variables of analysis included testing participants for their emotional empathy and aggressiveness in relation to their views on concussions. The findings of the study did not confirm most of the hypotheses, but the major hypothesis was supported. For participants who read the “serious” article condition, they reported taking concussions more seriously. Those that were exposed to the “less serious” article condition reported taking concussions less seriously. Therefore, the study shows that the framing of concussions in the sports media could have real consequences for both how the issue is discussed and perceived on the national landscape.

This general purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how businesses and consumers are co-creating brand value on social media by sharing photos on Instagram. The main focus is two-fold, one is to look at how corporations like Nike and Starbucks are utilizing Instagram to engage customers; another is to look at how customers presenting brand images and identify with brand personalities. This research analyzed 238 customer-created images and 62 corporate-created Instagram images using a hybrid method of qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis as an empirical way to explore the big picture of this new and understudied topic. The data was collected through Keyhole and Statigram, two online social media analytical tools. The analysis of the data shows overall positive brand image sharing among customers, implicit, indirect tactics in companies' official image sharing, and customers' use of brand as a way to promote and express themselves. Overall, customers' brand value co-creation practice on Instagram focus heavily on the individuals' self expression rather than brand community building. The study also discovered valuable themes of the use of selfies and the self-directed sarcasm among Instagramers who share brand images. The findings showed an overall decentralizing brand value co-creation process and that marketers today will face more and more challenges in controlling and managing a consistent brand image. The study contributes to the understanding of visual communication and the new marketing paradigm in a visual centric digital culture.

This dissertation explores the role of social media in political activism in authoritarian societies, using as case studies the use of YouTube as an alternative channel of communication and resistance during the political crises in Pakistan, Tunisia, and Egypt. I studied Pakistan because it is one of the few majority Muslim countries in which social media were part of the media mix during the mass uprisings that led to the overthrow of the regime of military leader, General Pervez Musharraf in 2007. Tunisia and Egypt were chosen because these two countries are seen as the iconic nations of the Arab Spring 2011. The study argues that the term "Arab Spring" itself limits the scope of ongoing online and offline political uprisings in the Muslim World, which is spreading beyond the geographical boundaries of the Middle East. The investigation uses "social movements" as defined and theorized by Hirschman (1970), Lohmann (1994), Olson (1965), and Tarrow (1994; 1998) as its theoretical foundation, in order to describe and explain how YouTube was part of the information activism of the social movements that sprang up during the revolutions in Pakistan, Tunisia and Egypt. A comparative methodological approach enables me to analyze the "most viewed" YouTube videos of political protests in the three countries. By examining a purposive sample of 60 most viewed protest-related YouTube videos, the study explores how these videos served as a "voice," (alternative channels of communication) when the authoritarian governments controlled all the media in the three countries. Using quantitative content analysis and thematic analysis approaches, the study investigates YouTube's role and content during Pakistan's political crisis of 2007, and compares it with that platform's role as an alternative avenue of communication, as well as its content in the 2011 political uprising in Tunisia and Egypt, which are the core of the Arab Spring in North Africa. Eight research questions were asked for this investigation. These questions were derived from Hirschman (1970), Lohmann (1994), Tarrow (1998), and Perlmutter's (1998) works. Issues that were investigated in these questions include: identifying the cultural and ideological frames used in the most viewed videos of each revolution, YouTube videos as "informational cascades," Al-Jazeera's role as "informational cascade," YouTube videos as a "Voice," and the most iconic images of each revolution. The findings of these research questions suggest that in the absence of traditional media sources, YouTube can serve as an alternative platform of communication and dissent. The study finds that the social movements in the three countries (The Lawyers' Movement of 2007 in Pakistan, the so-called Jasmine Revolution of Tunisia (2010), and the Arab Spring of Egypt 2011) utilized YouTube as an alternate channel of communication to disseminate information on political protests against the dictatorial regimes for purposes of promoting resistance. The visual content analysis of these videos revealed that the YouTube videos of political protests utilized common religious and national ideologies as a part of cultural and ideological frames to spread the narratives of political protests online. The findings of this study support that the most viewed videos contributed to serve as informational cascades for the observers (YouTube viewers) of these protest-related videos. The findings also highlight that the pan-Arabic TV channel Al-Jazeera utilized YouTube as an alternative platform to disseminate its protest-related videos, particularly when the channel was banned in the three countries. The visual content analysis of the most viewed videos of protests suggest that social movements in Pakistan, Tunisia and Egypt used YouTube to amplify their voice against corruption, unemployment, and authoritarianism in the three countries. The findings of this dissertation identify that three images (one from each country) were treated as the icons of outrage in the 60 most viewed protest-related videos. These icons of outrage include the images of Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation (Tunisia), torture-disfigured face of Khaled Said (Egypt), and the arrest of Pakistani Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudry. Based on its findings, the dissertation argues that the ongoing political struggle in Muslim-majority countries is a much bigger phenomenon than the "Arab Spring." This study also makes a strong case that Pakistan experienced online informational activism long before the Arab Spring of 2011. Since political communication in Pakistan is a relatively under-researched field, academic archives do not provide sufficient information on the role and emergence of social media in the country, including how the new modes of digital communication serve as alternative channels of political activism against dictatorship. This dissertation intends to fill this void. The study also contributes to the existing literature on communication, social movements and political activism, which is predominantly specific to Western settings. Since this study applies Western approaches of social movements to non-Western settings, it helps to explicate the applicability of such approaches to non-Western societies and contexts. Furthermore, it is important to understand the role of social media as alternative channels of communication in closed, authoritarian societies where the traditional media serve only the interests of the ruling elites. In addition, the study helps to explain how the increasingly popular social media, e.g. YouTube, are contributing to civil liberties by challenging the authoritarian regimes of the Muslim World.

This thesis is an examination of enski list, arguably the first magazine published exclusively for women between the wars in Croatia, and Yugoslavia. To fully understand the place, meaning and the impact of this magazine on everyday lives of its readers, with the study of the content I also include examination of the role of its editor and the first Croatian woman journalist Marija Jurić Zagorka. Finally, this thesis examines readers' responses to the content, their opinions, interactions between the readers and the editor, as well as interactions between the readers themselves for the overall assessment of the significance of enski list in the history of popular women's press in Croatia, and Yugoslavia. This thesis is a historical project which uses two theoretical approaches to study of media: feminist political economic approach, and the feminist critique of the public sphere. By combining these two theoretical standpoints I illuminated some of the ways in which media participate in everyday lives of people, specifically marginalized groups, in this case women. Situating the study within the historical context of the interwar Yugoslavia, and interwar Europe was important for understanding of this project, and its research questions. In this study I used multiple methods: (a) textual; (b) historical and biographical and, (c) audience study. In the larger part of this study which is a narrative discourse analysis of the content of enski list, I was also inspired by the interpretive ethnography of texts. I connected ethnography to feminist theory and political economy, to circumstances of gendered everyday practices and to circumstances of media culture production, all within the specific historical context. In this study I found that women in the changing socio-political and economic context expressed their relation to capitalism and modernity in different ways, sometimes exerting their critiques and the refusal of the existing patriarchal structures and sometimes seeking inclusion within the structures, with the intent to practice primarily gender equality by direct participation. Finally, the analysis of enski list has told an important story of the place of media, and the women's press in particular, in initiating, carrying, and challenging traditional and emerging discourses in the hope that they would contribute to the ways in which society can be imagined differently.

African American women's HIV incidence rates are disproportionately higher than other population groups in the United States. Social cognitive theory concepts were used to perform a quantitative content analysis of the magazines Essence, Ebony, and Jet, which are sources of health information and vicarious learning, to evaluate the quality of the HIV/AIDS prevention messages for 2000 to 2006. The data reveal some positive reflection of health messages, but many articles focus more on dramatic risk factors and less on providing useful information and proposed behaviors for African American women. Environmental risks and gender-specific risks are not emphasized. The public health community should use the media messages that are already present to build a media advocacy campaign that provides more comprehensive information and bring about social change.