Studies show that the vast majority of people have no problem voting for a woman and that when women run they win as often as men, yet female representation remains startlingly low in the U.S. Women are 50.8 percent of the U.S. population, but they account for merely 19.4% of the 535 seats in Congress, 24.5% of statewide executive positions, 24.2% of state legislatures, and 17.6% of mayors in cities with populations over 30,000 (Center for American Women and Politics 2015). There is certainly much research dedicated to gender and politics. But what is missing from current literature is an organized compilation of relevant research that can be easily used for practical purposes. While many books and articles have been written on various pieces of this puzzle, there is not a comprehensive manual for practical use drawing from a range of research. I intend to build on existing literature by organizing it in topical categories and presenting the findings of current research with some practical implications. My hope is that it can serve as a reference guide tailored to both researchers and practitioners.

With more and more sports organizations reaching saturation points in their current home markets, the search for new, untapped, international audiences is on. Reaching out to these new markets has been made much more simple by the digitization of communication, and particularly the global spread of social media. The NFL, as the United States most popular sports league has been targeting the United Kingdom as its next market since the mid-2000s, and has gone as far as setting up a separate UK branch of their communications division (NFL UK). The NFL faces several challenges in engaging new fans in this fresh and culturally dissimilar market, and therefore their communication efforts need to be highly engaging to help bridge the gaps between the two cultures. This two-part study examines whether Grunig and Hunts (1984) public relations models, can be traced from offline communications to online Twitter communications, specifically those of the NFL UK. The study also explores whether another facet of excellence theory, the inclusion of culturally specific concepts, is present in messages targeting a new marketplace, and whether this inclusion impacts the engagement levels with those messages. The findings demonstrate that Grunigs (1992) assertions that two-way symmetrical messages are the most engaging type, while press agentry/publicity and public information messages are least engaging, are not supported in the case of the NFL UKs use of Twitter. Instead the results of this study show that it is one-way communication models that receive the highest levels of engagement from new audiences. The findings do, however, support the case put forward by Grunig, Grunig & Dozier (2006), Wakefield (2007), Rhee (2009), and others, that organizations should attempt to incorporate in their messages terms and concepts specific to the culture that is being targeted. This study concludes by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. Elements of Grunigs (1992) set of public relations best practices, as laid out in excellence theory, do not easily translate to the world of digital communication, and often do not reflect at all in the messages of certain digital platforms, such as Twitter. An advancement of excellence theory is needed, particularly in relation to public relations best practices for the constantly changing world of social media, as well engaging international audiences. The results of this study also indicate some practical implications; organizations hoping to engage audiences embedded in a culture differing to their own should attempt to incorporate elements of this culture into their messages. In the case of Twitter, instead of focusing on the type of tweet, communications departments should emphasize the importance of diverse but relevant content in their messages when attempting to engage these new publics.

In this experiment, my goal was to determine if public perception of female athletes differed from public perception of male athletes. Female athletes are underrepresented in the media (Eastman and Billings, 2000), and because of this, public perception of male athletes might differ from their perceptions of female athletes in the media. I hypothesized that my respondents would best remember the female athletes appearance, best remember the male athletes interview content and that the female and male respondents who took my experiment would evaluate each athlete differently based on their own gender and the athletes gender. My results indicated that the respondents who watched the female student-athletes interview were more likely to write more detailed responses about dress and appearance, while at the same time, adding negative and malicious comments about them. Those who watched the male student-athletes interview were simpler in their dress and appearance descriptions, and the male student-athlete rarely received negative comments. Additionally, female respondents were more likely to pay attention to the male student-athletes interview than the female student-athletes interview. The male respondents were less diligent than the female respondents in recalling the interview content from both the male and female student-athletes, but more likely to recall the information from the male student-athletes interview. Female respondents were also more likely to detect emotions over the male student respondents. I believe, the results from my research boils down to female athletes being more critically judged in the media because of their underrepresentation (Eastman and Billings, 2000). In order to help stop this negativity female athletes receive, like the female in my experiment, I believe having more media training that provides insights on what to wear and how to look could lead to more positive comments for viewers watching female athletes on television. My vision is that the content of this thesis sparks further research so female athletes can be viewed the same way as male athletes.

This dissertation examines science blogging practices, including motivations, routines and content decision rules, across a wide range of science bloggers. Previous research has largely failed to investigate science blogging practices from science bloggers perspective or to establish a sociological framework for understanding how science bloggers decide what to blog about. I address this gap in previous research by conducting qualitative in-depth interviews with 50 science bloggers and an extensive survey of blogging motivations, approaches, content decisions rules, values and editorial constraints for over 600 active science bloggers. Results reveal that science blog content is shaped heavily by not only individual factors including personal interest, but also a variety of social forces at levels of routines, organizations or blogging communities, and social institutions. Factors revealed herein to shape science blog content are placed into a sociological framework, an adapted version of Shoemaker and Reeses Hierarchical Model of Influences, in order to guide current and future research on the sociology of science blogging. Shoemaker and Reeses Hierarchical Model of Influences is a model of the factors that influence mass media content, which has been used previously by mass communication researchers to guide analysis of mass media content production. In the visual model, concentric circles represent relative hierarchical levels of influences on media content, starting an individuals and expanding out to routines, organizations, extra-media influences and ideology. I adapt this model based on the factors found herein to influence science blog content, such as bloggers individual motivations, editorial constraints and access to information sources.

Using cross-national panel data, I investigated relationships among sociopolitical instability, major intrastate conflicts, democracy levels, and media and new information and communication technologies (ICTs) penetration rates and press freedoms. I conducted similar analyses regarding all non-democracies, looking at various types of political instability and media/ICT penetration rates. The results of this research add to democratic, freedom of expression, and political communication theories. These findings bring empirical evidence to help illuminate many of the popular debates surrounding the impact of new ICTs and freedom of expression on popular dissident activities. My results suggested that countries with higher rates of Internet and cell-phone penetration are more likely to experience sociopolitical instability, are more likely to experience nonviolent conflict compared to violent conflict, and to have higher levels of institutionalized democracy. I also found that higher levels of press freedoms were strong predictors of sociopolitical stability, nonviolent conflict over violent conflict, and increased levels of institutionalized democracy.

Today the list of environmental disasters threatening lives and natural resources has expanded to include many causes. Even though sustainable solutions have never been so urgent, public still issues low priority to many of these serious threats. Many impacts of environmental deprivation, such as coastal land loss, are invisible to the untrained eye, causing individuals to distance themselves psychologically from the risks. The slow pace of environmental degradation constitutes one of the biggest challenges in sustainability communication. The success of sustainable development will require the public to undergo a significant shift in thinking about environmental issues. This dissertation systemically investigates the influence of visual imagery on how people perceive environmental change. It explores visuals ability to influence issue urgency, issue importance, issue engagement, and issue salience. The relationship between these variables is investigated in a sequential and mixed-method format that involves content analysis and focus group discussions Results, which were interpreted in the context of the Visual Perception Model, suggested that affect and cognition influences one another to shape environmental perceptions. Particularly, images that incorporate hypothetical future scenarios are more likely to convey the urgency and importance of an issue. While images with an added affective component (positive and negative cues) make messages more engaging, they can also reduce motivation to take action. Willingness to support environmental solutions appears to be a result of publics ability to visualize short-term goals and successes.

The muckraking era is seen as a golden age of investigatory journalism. This thesis argues that within the muckraking era, there were a number of distinct types of journalism. To understand the muckrakers, we must recognize these different types of investigatory journalism and the potential influence the different types of storytelling can have on public opinion. Fourteen of the preeminent muckrakers are analyzed based on their most important investigatory journalism articles

This study examined media frames newspapers use in their coverage of the oil and gas industry. A content analysis was conducted to analyze if the oil and gas industry was portrayed positively or negatively in Louisiana newspapers compared to Texas newspapers and how the coverage between states differs. This comprehensive content analysis of print media coverage analyzed newspaper articles and provided a detailed explanation of results about how the oil and gas industry was portrayed over a five-year period of time as compared to other studies, which only analyzed the industry during a crisis period. Through categorization of the frames within the articles, results suggest that the proximity and location of where messages are distributed makes a difference in how the message is framed and what tone is prominent. Results also indicate a lack of distinction, in the media, between fully integrated companies and independent oil and gas companies. This study provides a further understanding of how framing of the oil and gas industry differs over time and between two states.

Using an experimental survey design, this study evaluated an advertising campaign developed by the College Republican National Committee targeting Millennials in the 2014 midterm elections. Three particular advertisements from Operation Red Campus were selected and tested using a pre-survey and two post-surveys. Due to data constraints, only the results of the first post-survey were used in this analysis. This campaign was designed in response to the Republican Partys continued problems of low youth turnout and poor party perceptions. This thesis analyzes the effectiveness of the strategies employed by the CRNC to target 18-24-year-olds with this campaign, adding to the limited body of literature on the subject. Following the pre-survey, respondents were exposed to randomized clips of one of the randomized CRNC advertisements or a control advertisement for the television show from which they were based. I hypothesized that respondents would be able to identify that the ads in the treatment condition were political in nature and that those exposed to the treatments would exude more positive views of the Republican Party and less positive views of Democrats. Findings showed that while the CRNC advertisements did significantly decrease Democratic favorability, there was no significant change among Republicans. Additionally, the results showed that the ads produced no change in voting behavior toward Democrats but significantly changed voting behaviors away from the Republican Party. The implications of these findings are analyzed and discussed.

Before the Telecommunications Act of 1996, station ownership was highly restricted to ensure that owners could not dominate in any one market nor own more than a handful of stations across all markets. The Act deregulated station ownership, redefining the role of the station owner from a financial supporter of public communication to an aggressive competitor in the television marketplace. With nearly three quarters of Americans citing local television and digital journalism as their top sources for information, this study serves two purposes: (1) to confirm the existence of storytelling as a professional, value-driven journalistic behavior in local television news and (2) to discuss the current state of the storytelling norm within the context of the larger crisis of journalism. The data from this dissertation come from four methodological approaches to the study of local television news: (1) observations of 18 days of news packaging inside ten local television newsrooms across seven companies and six markets, (2) qualitative comparisons of 32 cases of news packaging for the 6:00 pm newscasts that aired during the observation days, (3) two content analyses of each of the television and web products published in connection to the 32 cases and (4) 62 long-form, semi-structured interviews with the managers, producers, reporters and photographers responsible for those 32 cases. Findings indicate that journalistic norms are indeed vulnerable to corporate demands in particular when combined with a lack of meaningful managerial support. These data show that storytelling in local television news is a performance compromised by the search for economies of scale, where whether an event is covered is primarily the decision of people other than those who determine how an event should be covered.