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Community is created, developed, and produced by CrossFit as an organization through their website mission statement and visual media, and the community of CrossFitters are able to respond in kind on CrossFit social media. CrossFit culture has become a tour-de-force in the health and fitness industry over recent years, where individuals come together from all walks of life to connect to others through a health and fitness-centric focused community. The high- quality promotional media produced by CrossFit HQ offers a glimpse into what the organization promotes and values, and the official webpage is the main starting point for potential new members to engage with CrossFit as an organization. Likewise, the CrossFit Facebook page offers research into how individuals in the CrossFit community engage with promoted material, as well as how they may shape their identity or understanding as a result. Fantasy theme analysis (FTA) is useful for analyzing the way CrossFitters define their identity through their membership in CrossFit culture. FTA can help explain how both the CrossFit website and Facebook posts present the "CrossFit way of life" as an ideal fitness community and its implications for members. Using symbolic convergence theory (SCT) as a lens, research will utilize fantasy theme rhetorical criticism as the methodology with which these CrossFit artifacts (both Facebook posts and corresponding comments) are analyzed in order to develop a better understanding of the fantasy themes found within the CrossFit community as well as how members develop a sense of shared reality and identity through their membership in the organization. / Master of Arts / Community is created, developed, and produced by CrossFit as an organization through their website mission statement and visual media, and the community of CrossFitters are able to respond in kind on CrossFit social media. CrossFit culture has become a tour-de-force in the health and fitness industry over recent years, where individuals come together from all walks of life to connect to others through a health and fitness-centric focused community. The high-quality promotional media produced by CrossFit HQ offers a glimpse into what the organization promotes and values, and the official webpage is the main starting point for potential new members to engage with CrossFit as an organization. Likewise, the CrossFit Facebook page offers research into how individuals in the CrossFit community engage with promoted material, as well as how they may shape their identity or understanding as a result. Using symbolic convergence theory (SCT) as a lens, research will look at CrossFit website content, Facebook posts, and corresponding content to develop a better understanding of the CrossFit community as well as how members develop a sense of shared reality and identity through their membership in the organization.

This thesis operates under the assumption that the earliest form of mass communication is the religious sermon as recorded in the Bible. This thesis looks to Bormann, who used a sacred to secular approach and found similarities between Puritan sermons and the rhetoric of political speeches. This research reverses that order and moves from secular to sacred by looking first at well-known American speeches and then at landmark addresses to Seminary and Institutes of Religion teachers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—and specifically at Clark's The Charted Course of the Church in Education. This single sermon, delivered in 1938, continues to shape the Seminary and Institutes program after more than seven decades. With the opening of the first LDS Seminary in 1912, the foundations of the program were laid. Yet, each generation seemed to drift away from those foundations enough that a realignment was needed. In 1938, the constitution of Church education was given in the form of the Charted Course and it has served as the realigning document ever since. Subsequent realignments occurred in 1954, and 1963. Since 1976, the Charted Course has been referenced regularly, particularly during the annual Evening with a General Authority address to Seminary and Institute teachers and, consequently, since that time, no great drift has occurred that required another major realignment. Instead, the Charted Course is now used consistently to prevent drift, not only to correct it.

In releasing the songs "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" and "American Soldier" in the aftermath of September 11, country artist Toby Keith enacts a tradition that has been established in the world of country music since the Civil War, that of producing wartime songs of patriotism. I conducted an organic analysis of both songs as rhetorical acts produced and consumed within a particular rhetorical context. Because country music is fundamentally a discourse that celebrates the attitudes, values and experiences of its audience, I first analyzed these two songs as instances of epideictic rhetoric. As an epideictic rhetor, Keith reinforces the traditional values of the country music audience, uniting them in celebration of the communal identity that renders them a rhetorical community. That shared identity enables Keith to advance a rhetorical vision of a post-September 11 reality, attributing meaning to the events of September 11 and the ensuing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. I use pentadic analysis to illuminate the vision presented in each song, and I utilize both media coverage and the Billboard charts to determine how well this vision "chained out" amongst the country music audience. Lastly, I utilize media coverage to explore the rhetorical context in which these songs were written and consumed. / Master of Arts

Contemporary social and political discourses often emphasise the security threat of Jihadism towards Europe and the United States as the main terrorist threat. Two decades into the twenty-first century, however, the new threat of right-wing terrorism has emerged as the statistically most prominent form of terror. As these attacks are predominantly carried out through so-called lone wolf tactics, it becomes essential to understand how these actors operate. While there is a growing amount of empirical literature that seeks to understand this phenomenon of lone-wolf terrorism, many follow similar frameworks with explanatory models which are dependent on assumptions and common truisms, such as that lone wolves are loners with depressive personality disorders who are cultivated in a vacuum independent from social ties. This study instead explores group psycho-historical factors through the theoretical framework of Symbolic Convergence Theory, which is applied through discourse analysis. The research thus aims to identify group fantasies and grand narratives which ties these lone wolves to a community on which they depend upon in radicalisation and subsequently, in carrying out the attacks. The findings consequently suggest that the typology of lone wolf terrorism is misleading as the subjects indicate a group consciousness with a cohesiveness which grows stronger as they increasingly interpret a growing danger towards their community dependent on commonly recurring fantasies and narratives.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis sought to attain a greater understanding of persuasion through narrative. First, a rhetorical analysis was conducted. The rhetorical analysis identified fantasy themes represented in two original music video artifacts. These themes formed what the author calls Symbolic Convergence Cycle of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). Next, an experiment was conducted to provide further evidence that realistic narrative presentations have a greater ability to shape perceptions than more abstract presentations. Findings included that women were more likely to identify subtle abusive behaviors as abusive then men. However, after exposure to conditions containing the visual portion of the music video “Love the Way You Lie”, both female and male participants were less likely to identify subtle abusive behavior as abusive. This revealed that even though two messages can contain the same themes about the subject of IPV, the way that these messages were presented effected the way in which viewers interpreted the messages.

For this project I analyze the film Bronson, focusing on its connection to the contemporary masculinity crisis discourse or the belief that traditional notions of masculinity are in peril due to changing gender norms and women's social progress. I argue Bronson privileges a narrow, violent conception of masculinity through its presentation of violence and domination over other men. I use Ernest Bormann's Symbolic Convergence Theory to analyze how the film makes sense of the real life events it is based on in a way that appeals to the contemporary masculinity crisis discourse. I argue that Bronson is a notable representation of masculinity because it recounts the life of an infamous criminal in a fashion that frames his actions as a resistance to effeminate men. The film's treatment of masculinity is problematic because it advances a restrictive notion of masculinity that involves violent, destructive behavior.

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在多元性別文化以及女性意識抬頭的後現代中，世俗的愛情故事以及愛情觀，也開始有更多元的樣貌出現，本研究將透過語藝理論批評方法中的符號輻合理論及幻想主題方法分析台大PTT站中〈boy-girl〉、〈gay〉、〈lesbian〉板中討論情愛的文章，目的在了解數位時代下的社群分別凝聚出何種共享的愛情觀，形塑出何種的語藝視野。