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.

America prides itself on having a free press. Ideally, this free press would look like the communities in which they cover. However, research shows that gender discrepancies are quite common in newsrooms (Anderson 2014; Briscoe 2012; Norris 1997; Willnat and Weaver 2014). Women often have a marginal presence in newsrooms, and this is troublesome, because scholars have noted that men and women approach newsgathering and reporting differently (Beam and Cicco 2010; Briscoe 2012; Grabe et al. 2011; Weaver 1997). While research has focused on gender discrepancies in various types of media, little to no research has looked at the field of photojournalism specifically. This research aims to examine the gender demographics of photojournalism in American newspapers, as well as the organizational factors that could influence the amount of women in the field. Using census data provided by the American Society of News Editors, I was able to find support for three out of four hypotheses. Women are quite rare in the field of photojournalism, and factors such as the previous years demographics and a newspapers circulation impact the amount of women present in photo departments. With this research, I hope individuals working in newspapers examine their news organizations approach to women in photojournalism, and that newsrooms will aim to create a newsroom that is friendly to both genders and that reflects the communities in which they cover.

This dissertation examines how institutional, individual, and situational variables work to influence the volume of national broadcast and cable television news coverage members of the 109th, 110th, 111th, and 112th U.S. Houses of Representatives received. Analysis combines public data on House structure, member characteristics, member effort, and member circumstances with original computer-aided content analysis of the 38,430 transcripts in which members spoke and the 243,205 statements members made on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC between January 3, 2005 and January 3, 2013, the full terms of these four congresses. The results presented in this dissertation yield important information about which House members are most and least successful in garnering news coverage and how the effects of specific institutional, individual, and situational variables vary across different news organizations and across news organizations type. Implications for citizens, Congress, and democracy are discussed.