abstract: This dissertation discusses how Twitter may function not only as a tool for planning public protest, but also as a discursive site, albeit a virtual one, for staging protest itself. Much debate exists on the value and extent that Twitter (and other social media or social networking sites) can contribute to successful activism for social justice. Previously, scholars' assessments of online activism have tended to turn on a simple binary: either the activity enjoyed complete success for a social movement (for instance, during the Arab Spring an overthrow of a regime) or else the campaign was designated as a failure. In my dissertation, I examine a Twitter public-relations campaign organized by the New York Police Department using the hashtag #MyNYPD. The campaign asked citizens to tweet pictures of themselves with police officers, and the public did, just not in the way the police department envisioned. Instead of positive photos with the police, the public organized online to share pictures of police brutality and harassment. I collected six months of tweets using #MyNYPD, and then analyzed protestors' rhetorical work through three lenses: rhetorical analysis, analysis of literacy practices, and social network analysis. These analyses show, first, the complex rhetorical work required to appropriate the police department's public-service campaign for purposes that subverted its original intent; second, the wide range of literacy practices required to mobilize and to sustain public attention on data exposing police abuse; and third, the networked activity constituting the protest online. Together, these analyses show the important work achieved within this social justice campaign beyond the binary definition of successful activism. This project shows that by increasing our analytical repertoires for studying digital rhetoric and writing, scholars can more accurately acknowledge what it takes for participants to share experiential knowledge, to construct new knowledge, and to mobilize connections when engaging online in public protest. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2016

My dissertation focuses on nineteenth-century American literature texts that engage with ruins and monuments. Traditionally, this interaction has been treated as a formal curiosity for literary critics, but this project argues interarts literature carries important implications for public sphere theory, especially in cases when an author writes about nationalist architecture and iconography.

Much recent scholarship celebrates the early modern period for its development of broader public political engagement through printed media and coffeehouse culture. It is the argument of this study that the formation in England under Charles II of a public sphere may be shown to have followed a reassessment of political discourse that began at Westminster during the troubled reign of that king’s father, Charles I. The narrative of parliament’s growth in this era from an “event to an institution,” as one historian describes it, tells of more than opposition to the King on the battlefields of the English Civil War. Parliament-work in the early years of England’s revolutionary decade also set new expectations for rhetorical deliberation as a means of directing policy in the House of Commons. The ideals of discursive politics that were voiced in the Short Parliament (May 1640), and more fully put into practice in the opening session of the Long Parliament (November 1640), were soon also accepted by politically-minded authors and readers outside Westminster. Prose controversy published in print and political poetry that circulated in manuscript both demonstrate that the burgeoning culture of debate outside parliament could still issue “in a parliamentary way.” Such promotion of productive textual engagements eventually constituted a wider, notional assembly, whose participants – citizen readers – were as much a product of deliberate education and fashioning as they were of the “conjuring,” “interpellation,” or “summoning” that recent scholarly vocabulary suggests. Following the spirit of reform in the English parliament, and subsequently developing through the years of partisan political writing that followed, public opinion, like the Commons, established itself in this era as an institution in its own right. These public and private assemblies disseminated the unprecedented amount of parliamentary writing and record-keeping that distinguishes the period under review, and this rich archive provides the literary and historical context for this study.

"Reading the Narcosphere: A Queer Hemispheric Critique of Narco Cultural Production," analyzes the emergence of contemporary drug politics (drug trade and drug war) as a dominant cultural narrative of the public sphere, producing what I call the narco-sphere. Drawing from theories on sexuality, subjectivity and biopolitics, I examine the intractability and interconnectedness of social relations of race, gender, and class in narco cultural production by building on critical work in social and political theory as well as narco studies. Rather than merely reflecting on the effects of the ongoing drug war, narco cultural texts about Colombia, Mexico, and the U.S.-Mexico border produce relations of power that while intending to critique drug culture and neoliberalism, reify complicit social hierarchies through discourses of difference that promote marginalization and exclusion of vulnerable subjects. Through readings of cultural texts such as Jorge Franco's Rosario Tijeras, Lourdes Portillo’s Señorita Extraviada, Fernando Vallejo's Our Lady of the Assassins, and Luis Estrada’s film El Infierno, I further demonstrate how the social relations portrayed are not simply endemic to the drug trade and the drug war but instead are deployments of power in accordance with neoliberalism and neocolonialism. Through my notion of the narco-sphere and a queer critique, I offer a more incisive way to read difference within western hemispheric cultural politics.

Democracy posits that broadly based participation in deliberative processes will lead to laws and policies that are more inclusive and more just than the measures enacted by monarchs or powerful elites (Hauser 1999:5). Jurgen Habermas (1964) propounded the theoretical concept of the public sphere as a “domain of social life where public opinion is expressed by means of rational public discourse and debate” (Papacharissi, 2013:113). It is on such a platform that democracy is seen in action. Changes in socio-economic structures of states and advancements in communication technologies that have occurred in the last decades have facilitated a transformation in the character of the public spheres. The explosion of new media technologies has made it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways, thus fostering a participatory culture (Jenkins et al :2004). This research analyses the extent to which six videos categorized under the banner, “Hug a Muslim” campaign utilize YouTube as a platform for opinion sharing and for promoting public awareness of negative, stereotypical representations of Muslims. Such representations promote mistrust, suspicion, fear and other prejudices that associate Islam and Muslims with discourses of terrorism. Through critical discourse analysis, this research discusses power dynamics and discursive elements underlying the videos in the sample. Applying Gerard Hauser (1998) ´s rhetorical model of the public sphere, this research explores the extent to which online viewer comments accompanying the videos on YouTube adhere to the five rhetorical norms that determine their effectiveness as public sphere discourse, thus helping in establishing whether or not YouTube functions as an effective rhetorical public sphere in the context of the “Hug a Muslim” campaign. This study revealed that 58% of the analysed YouTube viewer comments on the campaign were compatible with the five rhetorical norms and thus reflecting YouTube´s function as a rhetorical public sphere in the context of the “Hug a Muslim” campaign. In an effort to further understand the motivations as well as underlying processes surrounding the creation and sharing of the videos, online questionnaires have been administered to the content producers of the videos under analysis in this research.

Abstract Print media reports on the SABC suggest that the public service broadcaster (PSB) is undergoing a crisis in terms of fulfilling its PSB responsibilities. Hence, this study examines whether the SABC is a genuine PSB. In examining the SABC as a PSB, theories of media and democracy and critical political economy of the media are used. However, this study also engages with the corollary theories of the public sphere, the public interest, PSB, and development journalism. The study uses the PSB characteristics of independence, accountability, distinctiveness and finance as themes to ascertain whether the SABC is a genuine PSB. The methodology of this study consists of institutional analysis, document analysis (which is split into a policy analysis and an examination of print media reports on the SABC) and semi-structured interviews. The study finds that firstly, the SABC’s independence, both politically and economically, is eroded. Secondly, although the SABC is accountable to the state and ICASA, the institution is not adequately accountable to the public it claims to serve. Thirdly, due to the SABC’s reliance on commercial sources of funding, the institution is increasingly shifting towards commercialisation. Fourthly, due to the SABC’s increasing shift towards commercialisation, the institution’s high-quality content provision is being compromised. Hence, the SABC’s distinctiveness in comparison to other broadcasters is eroding. The SABC’s violation of the central tenets of PSB is indicative of a governance crisis within the institution, but most importantly, it indicates that the SABC is not a genuine PSB. A core reason for the SABC’s inability to fulfil the central tenets of PSB and the governance crisis that has befell the institution, are flaws in legislation. The legislation that governs the SABC does not adequately ensure the institution’s independence from the government or its accountability to the public. Consequently, legislation governing the SABC inhibits the institution from fulfilling its PSB responsibilities.

Public art with religious themes or inspiration often represents, promotes, or challenges the concerns, values, characteristics, and/or history of the community in which this art is situated. This dissertation explores the contribution of public religious art to generating dialogue about social issues, in particular homelessness. It builds on scholarship indicating that publicly engaged art is a catalyst for promoting mutual understanding among diverse stakeholders with differing worldviews and joins an ongoing scholarly debate about the place of religion in a secular democratic society. As a case study, I use Timothy Schmalz’s bronze sculpture entitled Homeless Jesus, as an example of public art intended to generate public awareness about social marginalization and homelessness. Situated within the critical paradigm, this dissertation uses a case study methodology to explore the ways faith-based organizations and secular media elicit and use meanings through the representation of sculpture in public and mediated spaces. To gain multiple vantage points for examining the meanings and uses of Homeless Jesus, this case study draws on interviews with faith leaders at organizations who have a replica or are located near the replica in Hamilton, Ontario (n=12), online news articles that reference it (n=85), and photos of replicas in six urban locations. Data analysis proceeded through three stages: an iconography, a narrative inquiry, and a thematic analysis. This case study culminates in insights on the relationship between public religious art and public dialogues on social issues, such as homelessness. Findings indicate that public religious art is a mode in which faith-based organizations seek to contribute to public dialogues about social issues in a manner that is accessible and acceptable to those with differing worldviews. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Public art with religious themes or inspiration can represent, promote, or challenge the concerns, values, identity, and/or history of the communities in which it is situated. Using Timothy Schmalz’s bronze sculpture entitled Homeless Jesus, as an example of public religious art intended to generate awareness about homelessness, this dissertation explores the contribution of public religious art to public dialogues about social issues. To understand how faith-based organizations and secular media interpret and use Homeless Jesus, I analyze photos of replicas, online news articles that reference it, and interviews with faith leaders at organizations that have a replica or are located near the replica in Hamilton, Ontario. Findings indicate that faith-based organizations use art to contribute to public dialogues in a manner they hope is accessible to and respectful of those with differing worldviews.

No description available.

This study seeks to understand public and institutional uptake of the public hearing genre. More specifically, this study examines how public hearing genre conventions are established and how those conventions inform and often govern tensions that arise in public discourse about a contested environmental project. In my research, I analyzed a corpus of public comments from two Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) 401 Water Quality Certification public hearings that were held in August 2017 and hosted by Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ). Additionally, I conducted interviews with 13 community members and two state representatives who spoke at one of the two hearings. This approach led me to several important findings. Most significantly, I found that while many community members understood VA DEQ's stated purpose of the public hearings, they prepared comments that spoke to an entirely different purpose because they were responding to a different kind of problem than that of VA DEQ. This finding is crucial to understanding the other tensions and ideas of consensus that occur among citizens and VA DEQ representatives since the kind of problem informs the uptake of the public hearing and the overall interpretation of the public hearing genre. My dissertation thus argues that there are ways we might reimagine ideas of effectiveness, consensus, and the public hearing genre, specifically in the case of the 401 Public Hearings and more generally in other public hearings where public discourses center on a contested environmental project like the MVP. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study examines the role and effect of public hearings and the tensions that sometimes arise within them. More specifically, I analyze transcripts from the two 401 Water Quality public hearings about the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). These hearings occurred in August 2017 and were hosted by Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ). Additionally, I conducted interviews with 13 community members and 2 state representatives who spoke at one of the two hearings. This approach led me to several important findings. Most significantly, I found that while many community members understood VA DEQ's stated purpose of the public hearings, they prepared comments that spoke to an entirely different purpose because they were responding to a different kind of problem than that of VA DEQ. This finding is crucial to understanding the other tensions and ideas of consensus that occur among citizens and VA DEQ representatives since the kind of problem informs how people prepare for and engage with the public hearing and the overall interpretation of the public hearing as a genre. My dissertation thus argues that there are ways we might reimagine ideas of effectiveness, consensus, and the public hearing genre, specifically in the case of the 401 Public Hearings and more generally in other public hearings where public discourses center on a contested environmental project like the MVP.

This thesis examines online journalism in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and its role in political debate in this emerging democracy. It also focuses on the role of the internet in the public sphere, explores the historical context in which Kurdish online journalism has developed and compares mass media in the Kurdistan region to that in other newly democratic countries, in addition to the mass media landscape, human rights conditions and political system in the Kurdistan region and Iraq overall are explored. Data has been collected through in-depth interviewing of journalists, both independent and affiliated with political parties, as well as media academics and other educators. Moreover, as a case study, a qualitative thematic analysis has been carried out on opinion articles in online news sites to search for key themes and messages published and explore the limits of free discussion online. The thesis argues that although there are many barriers to media work and freedom of expression, online journalism in the Kurdistan region is an alternative tool for expression and constitutes a better medium for promoting freedom of speech than mainstream media outlets. It then suggests recommendations for conducting further studies about the development and influences of online journalism and social media on Kurdish society. / Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)