Violence toward women and girls is a complex, pervasive and ubiquitous social problem. The material problem of epidemic levels of gender-based violence in the U.S.—incest, rape, dating and intimate partner abuse—exists within a cultural environment in which thousands of images of girls and women being harmed circulate daily. Much of this representation presents such experience as being pleasurable—if not for the victim then for the viewer. Competing with these images are representations that problematize violence toward women and girls, and, occasionally, connect violence with its traumatic consequences. How interpersonal violence and its reverberations are figured popularly and within the scholarly literature has material consequences in women's lives. The three primary goals of this research were: (1) to demonstrate how the ways women make sense of interpersonal violence are constitutively related to the ways violence against women is represented in popular culture and scholarly discourses; (2) to explicate the relationship between the postmodern media subject and the trauma subject; and (3) to develop and apply a communication of trauma approach to investigate the relationship between interpersonal and representational violence as contextualized within contemporary, postmodern media culture. This dissertation, based upon two studies, comprehensively examines the relationship between the ways violence is publicly figured and privately lived by 53 ethnically-, sexually- and class-diverse survivors of gender-based violence. Situated within the U.S. cultural terrain of the early 1990s, how victims of gender-based traumatic violence made sense of violence in the media, and, more basically, how they make sense of and heal from the interpersonal violence in their lives are examined. Data sources include: 6 months of participant observation in violence support groups, extended-length viewing focus groups (which screened made-for-television movies), and follow-up individual interviews. Analysis centered upon the communication strategies women employ to survive cultural violence, and how these strategies are constrained, enabled by, and embedded within the contemporary society dominated by popular culture and the mass media. Strategies participants were found to use to resist the implicit alienation of their experience and to voice themselves and their perspectives into the cultural symbolic and the discourses of history are discussed.

This study analyzes the ideological effects of Channel One, the commercial television news program currently being implemented in the nation's public school systems, from a cultural studies perspective. These effects are traced primarily through an audience study of 627 high school students and 39 teachers from public schools in a small city in Ohio. The qualitative research design involves a modified application of the "encoding/decoding" model for studying media effects, developed by Stuart Hall and operationalized by David Morley. Specifically, I apply the encoding/decoding model to analysis of the social uses of Channel One, rather than to the content of Channel One. In doing so, I expand the model to integrate political economic determination of the encoding/decoding process, by treating this as a distinct "level of preference" to be explored within a qualitative research design. The findings of the audience study are examined against the backdrop of the overall cultural context within which Channel One has emerged. I argue that Channel One is an exemplary "post-Fordist" cultural form that arose in response to both a crisis in capital accumulation and a crisis in symbolic overaccumulation in contemporary U.S. culture. Its fundamental role amidst these crises is to reassert control over an increasingly fragmenting semiotic landscape, and thereby to recapture an increasingly fragmenting media audience. The audience study finds that Channel One is profoundly hegemonic in its attempt to police and control audience interpretations of its social use as a media form and as an 'official' educational tool.

This dissertation is concerned with the modern Western phenomenon of "display zones." The concept of "display zones" is defined as those spaces of representation which are marked off from the space of daily life with clearly defined borders, and constructed with the intention of causing a sense of spatial and/or temporal displacement. It argues that the dominant mode of representation within the "display zones" is based on the mimetic doctrine of truth. As the major elements of modern representational economy, "display zones" establish and regulate the process called the constitution of cultural difference from a Western perspective. In this process, the representation of non-Western cultures via their display amounts to their discursive constitution as "Other cultures." In the first part of this dissertation, the constitution of cultural difference in "display zones" is investigated in terms of its metaphysical constituents. In the second part, the concrete cases of the nineteenth-century world's fairs, the phenomenon of displaying bodies, and finally the discourse of the modern ethnography museum are analyzed.

The advancement of technological innovations and global reforms for improving early warning systems as a key risk-reduction principle is transforming modern practices in risk communication. However, in the global context, this transformation varies greatly among regions, especially in less-resourced areas. The result is uneven preparedness that leads to unnecessary and major losses of life and infrastructure and property damage. How well governments in less-resourced regions are adequately prepared to achieve this technological and global homogenization is the vital question. Communication research on media innovations lacks examination of how well integrated disaster warning services are performing as critical components of public service. This dissertation takes these observations as its starting point and seeks to elaborate differential elements of governance that may influence capabilities of public agencies’ function in the communication of disaster warnings. One goal of this research is to fill the gap in disaster and communication scholarship and study the characteristic elements and uses of innovation by examining the accompanying challenges in less developed regions. Applying the concepts of governance and public service in studying disaster warning undermines the traditional bias that the challenges inherent in risk and crisis communication are primarily organizational. The other more important purpose is to offer specific insights in three principal areas of innovations in the communication of warnings by: (a) understanding the dynamics of how media innovations occur in disaster communication practices; (b) elaborating the factors that promote or inhibit the development of such innovations; and (c) generating theoretical and practical propositions for improvements in public service delivery of disaster warnings through innovations. In the process of achieving these goals, a more specific understanding of the warning communication process among the various organizational units of public service systems in disaster management of the region studied was achieved. In this study, theoretical and methodological decisions were made on the basis of the central proposition guiding this evaluation: the communication of disaster warnings is a public service. Although global governance actors guide risk-reduction policy initiatives, they are enacted at the national and sub-national levels. The study explores the dissemination system of disaster warning in Pakistan, and Sindh. Its southern province is examined as a sub-national level and as a less-resourced, disaster-prone region. The insights from this case study can be applied to guide evaluative research further for similar regions where limited resources and capabilities to innovate warning systems exacerbate the situation and result in a substantial increase in losses. This study used a sequential mixed method evaluative research design. Initial findings were analyzed and integrated for holistic representation of findings. The study draws conclusions from two key aspects in the uses and adoption of media innovation development in public service. The first is the variant approaches to innovations across each level of government. It found that, at the policy level, and considering the limited capabilities vis-à-vis the scope of transformation, the approach to innovation development is transitional. In view of the extent of discretionary authority and available support at the managerial level, the approach to adopting new technology is driven by each disaster experience. Depending on the expertise and resources available within the context of local agencies and communities, a hybrid form of innovation development is approached at the operational level that utilizes technology in the communication of warnings. Secondly, the aspect of a more balanced and unified policy design and the implementation of innovations. The study found that a risk-based and audience segmented approach in nationally defined policy imperative guides the transition from linear to a non-linear, or non-hierarchical, communication system; from traditional to networked communication modes; and from traditional (one-way) to advanced (two-way/interactive) communication tools in the communication of warnings. The study found that the policy and planning measures as well as managerial decision-making for innovation is geared only towards those risks that occur frequently in the region, such as floods and cyclones. For other risks, the managerial decision-makers develop new protocols and strategies to utilize new media and technology tools only when the risk is manifested and damages occur, such as the heat hazard in summer 2015. Importantly, the study observed that for emergency managers at the local district level, besides floods, and cyclones, the emerging risks also include civil conflicts, terrorist attacks, and other extreme natural hazards such as droughts, heat hazards, and flash floods for which no planning or new practices have been developed by the provincial authorities. The study observed three major factors that affect both the approaches to develop an innovation and the kind of change it brings to the system. These are: cost, climate change, and contextual factors. The important implications of these findings suggest that while various cost variables and climate changes affect policy, plans, and subsequent practices adversely, the constantly advancing media and technological context of the region offers great opportunities to adopt potential media innovations for effective service delivery of disaster warnings. The study also observed that role of both global and sub-national level actors in governance is significant in characterizing policy design and implementing specific plans for innovation in a warning system. While global actors have a key role in defining specific policy design and initiatives, regional actors at the sub-national level play a fundamental role in implementing plans. Given the meta-inferences, this dissertation proposes a scarcity-abundance framework as an extension of innovation scholarship in less-resourced regions for more even adoption of media innovation. It contends that context variables that characterize “abundance” can address the challenge of scarcity. The expanding outreach of media and telecommunication based industries in the region offer possibilities for government sector to counter the limitations towards successful innovations. For practical implications, policy adaptation to constantly changing media, climate-change, and technology for the viable adoption of media innovation can bridge the current gaps in innovation adoption. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2016. / May 10, 2016. / Disasters, disaster warnings, evaluative research, innovation in governance, media innovation, public service innovation / Includes bibliographical references. / Stephen D. McDowell, Professor Directing Dissertation; Ralph Brower, University Representative; Jay Rayburn, Committee Member; Mia Liza A. Lustria, Committee Member.

Bibliography: p. 134-137. / The past three years (1987 -1990) have seen an increase in environmental coverage and a widening of the press' interest to include broader environmental issues. This increase raises the question of the way in which the press is presenting environmental issues, since the press could play an important role in the development of environmental awareness among the public. The aim of the study was to identify factors that could be influential in encouraging or discouraging environmental coverage, and the type and extent of coverage. The study identified factors influential in the coverage of three environmental issues, global warming, atmospheric ozone depletion, and the Sappi paper mill effluent spill into Eastern Transvaal rivers (1989), in two South African daily newspapers, The Star and The Citizen. A combination quantitative-qualitative content analysis was undertaken on reports by these newspapers to assess the nature of the news values operating during coverage (to determine what made the issues newsworthy), and the existence of editorial bias toward or against the environment. Interviews were conducted with a small sample of news personnel and individuals active in the Sappi effluent spill issue to contextualise the results of the content analyses. The study method was undertaken within the theoretical frame of newspaper agenda-setting. The results showed that despite differences in editorial bias and source use, the newspapers on the whole displayed the same news values in covering the issues. The main news values operating were a focus on the dangerous and controversial aspects, a preference for 'hard news' events, the relevance of an issue for readers and the activities of elite persons or nations in the issue. This indicated event-orientation by the press, and a tendency to sensationalise environmental issues. Some over-simplification of the full ramifications of the issues, particularly the atmospheric issues, was found to be operating. The implications of these approaches for environmental reporting and the reader's perception of the environment were discussed. Logistical factors (intra- and extra-organisational constraints) were also found to play a part in coverage. A wide range of factors were identified that operate, to a greater or lesser degree at different times, in press coverage of environmental issues. These were : - the newspaper perception of its role in society, - editorial policy, resources of the newspaper, area of distribution, the 'hardness' of news, the complexity of the issue, - the availability of accredited sources, the health of the national economy, international economic trends, the amount and type of other news, 'competitive bind', public awareness of environmental issues, and the role of an environmentally-committed individual in the newspaper organisation.

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This study explores the meaning of work by focusing on the grammar of the term working among Acadian-Americans. The Acadian-Americans offered an exceptional starting point because of their deep pride and commitment to working. While the Acadian-Americans do not represent all cultures, they show how the meaning of working is dependent on the grammar of the term. Grammar refers to Wittgenstein's idea which includes the gestures, emotions, patterns of behavior, and rules that people may use in the way they talk about a concept such as working. This would also embody how the concept is organized (Wittgenstein, 1958). A grammar is learned by acting with others in a way that is coherent and makes sense to the participants. The study shows how the “right way” of working is dependent on critical features within this community. The Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) developed by Pearce and Cronen (1980) is used as a theory and methodology to analyze the situated interaction of Acadian-Americans. CMM, which has been largely influenced by the work of the American pragmatists, most notably Dewey, James, and Mead, regards communication as the primary social process. The analysis explored the stories told and lived by the Acadian-Americans about working and identified the logical and moral forces that were critical in enacting episodes of action. This study focused on the aesthetical aspects of experience and how feeling and action organizes and symbolizes experience. The consummatory experience of working, an idea first explored by Dewey (1934), provided a heightened sense of identity and membership in a community of people that act and feel a certain way about working. The study concludes that working is lived action and socially constructed through situated interaction. Thus, working can take on different meanings in different contexts with its own rules and practices that guide peoples' actions. This study reveals that working is not the same in all places for all people. CMM is a practical theory, and this study in the tradition of CMM and American pragmatism, offers directions for managers and leaders outside of the academy.

This dissertation analyzes the modes of social emergences and the transformations in Taiwanese oppositional movements during Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945 and the KMT's rule from 1945 to 1987 on the basis of Deleuze and Guattari's theorizations. Five types of multiplicity of States, of towns, of primitives, of bands, and of nomads developed from Deleuze and Guattari's theories were used to provide the genealogical interpretation of the seventeen oppositional events and their sub-events from five significant periods in the actualization of imperial and capitalist stratification from 1895 to 1987. Each oppositional event was analyzed as it was presented as the individuated modes of social emergence and transformation which were directed respectively by the quality of its will to power or desire produced from its oppositional machinic assemblage through the interactions with multiplicities deterrotorializing from the complex of state-form at its specific time and space. In my finding, the modes of social emergences of Taiwanese oppositional events were shown as expressions reflecting phenomena in a manner of bi-polarization, especially when the multiplicity of oppositional assemblages encountered the multiplicity of colonial nation-states. In the first part of my dissertation, the research objective, the scope of research, and the research method accompanying a molar entity of Taiwanese history from the sixteenth century on were introduced. In the second part, Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy and the relevant theories to my study were discussed. The third part analyzed in detail the oppositional events occurred during Japanese rule. The fourth part analyzed in detail those oppositional events during KMT rule. In the fifth part, five types of multiplicity were used to offer a genealogical interpretation of the modes of social emergences and the transformations of Taiwanese oppositional movements. In the conclusion, the shortcomings of previous approaches as well as my analysis were addressed.

A Kenneth Burke Lexicon is a lexiconographical study of select terminology in Kenneth Burke's nine major works published during the period from 1931 to 1972: Counterstatement, 1931; Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose, 1935; Attitudes Toward History, 1935; The Philosophy of Literary Form, 1941; A Grammar of Motives, 1945; A Rhetoric of Motives, 1950; The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology, 1961; Language as Symbolic Form: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method, 1966; and Dramatism and Development , 1972. This study is intended to be used as a pedagogical tool to assist in the teaching and reading of Kenneth Burke. It is comprised of a lexicon of 755 terms and their definitions derived from 4236 textual references. The terms have been selected on the basis of the degree of difficulty they present to the reader. The definitions of these terms are largely composed of Burke's own words in order to more objectively and authentically elucidate and define his complex terminology. In addition to defining terms, the lexicon has employed a methodological approach suggested by Dr. Jane Blankenship of “charting terms.” Such charting provides a fourfold definition: (1) after a summary definition, it (2) undertakes an extended definition to (3) present a history of definitions which (4) charts the evolution of the term over time. By so doing, the lexicon allows the reader the opportunity to look up any given term encountered in reading Kenneth Burke and contextualize it in relation to all of Burke's other major works.

This study considers the history and cultural specificity of women-owned sex stores in the United States, and the particular model of sexual retailing that has evolved alongside these businesses—what I refer to as the Good Vibrations model, a “tasteful,” educationally based, and quasi-therapeutic approach to selling sex toys designed to appeal “especially but not exclusively” to women. Drawing upon extensive participant observation research, in-depth interviews, and archival materials, I examine how discourses of sexual liberation, education, feminism, and consumer-capitalism coalesce within these retail environments, helping to establish what one proprietor describes as the “alternative sex vending movement.” I trace the emergence of public discourses about female masturbation and orgasm in the early seventies, and explore how these ideas were incorporated into sexual consciousness-raising groups, sex therapy programs and, eventually, women-run vibrator businesses. I analyze the underlying “sex positive” philosophies, representational strategies, and retail norms and practices that define the Good Vibrations model, and consider how ideas about gender, class, and sexual taste are mobilized by various storeowners and staff in an effort to cultivate “respectable” retail environments that stand in contrast to the stereotype of sex stores as inherently base and “sleazy.” I argue that for many women-owned sex toy stores in the US, including Good Vibrations and Toys in Babeland, the marketplace doubles as a platform for sex activism and education, which has enabled these businesses to carve out a distinct and profitable niche in the sexual marketplace. By way of contrast, I discuss the impact that anti-vibrator statutes have on sexual speech and retailing in Texas, one of several states in the US where it is illegal to sell sex toys. Despite the growth and commercial success of women's sex businesses over the past thirty years, my research suggests that there is nothing straightforward about practicing sexual politics through the market; indeed, it is a project fraught with challenges and contradictions as storeowners and staff attempt to negotiate the shifting terrain of identity politics on the one hand, and the tensions between feminism, consumer-capitalism, profitability, and social change on the other.