Young adults' stereotypes of older adults has been well-documented in communication literature, however, there has been a lack of research on the impact of message strategy on intergenerational interactions. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among three factors that previous research suggests should influence the activation of stereotypes toward a target: age, relational level, and message strategy. This study examines the role that message strategy, in this case, verbal aggressiveness, plays in activating young adults' (n = 186) negative stereotypes of older adults. The young adults' self-reported levels of trait verbal aggressiveness was positively correlated with negative stereotype activation. Verbally aggressive messages, also, consistently activated more negative stereotypes than did the corresponding neutral message strategy. Although all three factors (age, relational level, and message strategy) accounted for differences in stereotype activation, message strategy had the largest effect on negative stereotype activation. Implications of the findings on intergenerational interactions are discussed.

This dissertation examines media coverage of two events in the Civil Rights Movement-the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955 and the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-56. The study focuses on three publications aimed primarily at white audiences (Life, Look and the New York Times) and two aimed primarily at black audiences (the Birmingham World and Jet). The dissertation seeks to answer several questions. How did mainstream news organizations cover black Americans in the decades prior to the 1950s? In reporting on the Till murder case and the Montgomery bus boycott, did coverage by mainstream news organizations change? If so, in what ways? And, most important, which news organizations did the best job covering the Till murder case and the Montgomery bus boycott? The researcher defined best as those publications that quoted a diversity of sources, provided historical context and identified the central problem while following accepted journalistic routines such as attribution and balance. The researcher examined every story and photograph published by the five news organizations about the Till lynching and the Montgomery bus boycott. The researcher used textual analysis as the primary methodology. The study also incorporated two mass communication theories-framing and cultural studies. The dissertation found that the black-oriented publications produced the most accomplished journalistic coverage by providing a greater range of sources, broader context, more depth and a clear statement of the central problem. The study showed that during the first half of the twentieth century, mainstream news organizations largely ignored blacks or presented them as criminals. But this changed during the Till murder case and the bus boycott. The dissertation found that in reporting on these events, Life, Look and the New York Times adopted new frames-first presenting blacks as the innocent victims of deadly racial hatred and later as nonviolent protestors. These findings challenge the widely held opinion that the New York Times provides the best journalistic source of information on key historical events. This study also challenges the widespread view that the black press is a "fighting" press that uses its news columns to advance a political agenda.

The purpose of the study was to determine how often and to what degree imprecise frequency descriptors are used in prescription drug print ads. These descriptors along with the side effects they describe were compared to their corresponding prescription medicine websites and analyzed to determine whether or not the general public is being misinformed and/or misled in terms of side effect warnings by current drug advertising. Content analysis of Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertisements found in five of the top seven magazines most likely to be consumed by readers over age 65 was the method of investigation for this study. The time frame of the magazines studied, was, August 2002 to July 2003. Using SPSS and descriptive statistics, results indicated that within DTC advertising, there is a great potential to mislead. For example, all of the side effects listed in the advertisements were also listed on their corresponding drug websites. Though, in some cases, the side effects with the highest incidence percentages on the websites were not listed at all in the advertised side effect warning. Some side effects with incidence levels of over 30% on the websites were listed in the advertisements but were provided with imprecise frequency descriptors such as may include or most common. The difference in website and magazine side effect descriptions present a question of credibility. It appears from the discrepancy between the website side effect descriptions and magazine side effect warnings that the magazines are at best incomplete and probably misleading. Possible suggestions for correcting the situation could include mandatory guidelines for side effect warnings including the number of side effects, inclusion of percentages, font size, and placement of the side effect warning.

Louisiana Governor Mike Foster took to the airwaves on August 10, 2000 with the launch of Live Mike, his weekly radio program that would air for 41 weeks during Fosters second term. Foster, a Republican, served as Governor of Louisiana from January 1996 until January 2004. This study historically chronicles Governor Mike Fosters weekly radio program, Live Mike during and prior to its four years on the air. This historical narrative illustrates how Foster intermingled radio, politics and his personal life to create a weekly radio program that he attempted to use during his second term to relay his message to listeners. By examining the 41 weeks of the show through newspaper accounts, personal interviews and experience, and Governors Office records and call logs, the study found some evidence that Foster was able to take his message directly to the people at times without the filter of the media. In doing so, the show caused Foster to leave his introverted tendencies for an hour each week. The show brought Foster down to a human level for the public, but also opened the Governors vulnerability to be seen by listeners. The study also shows that while some saw the 8 p.m. time slot as an advantage for Foster by not providing reporters enough time to recheck facts or obtain opposing views before going to print, the late time of the show eventually led to a decreased audience and a lack of news coverage of the program. While the desired audience and impact was not what Foster first envisioned for the 8 p.m. show, it served as a training ground for the governor that allowed him, at the launch of the 2 p.m. show, to portray confidence from behind the microphone and be more effective in reaching out to his listeners.

This research aimed to provide some proof or refutation of the hypothesis that online communities develop specialized vocabularies, often technical jargon, and use elements of those vocabularies, here labeled tokens, to ascribe credibility and/or authority to other posters. The literature from a variety of communications fields relating to this topic was summarized as a progression from an early limitations model of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to a later opportunities model. The drawbacks of current research were outlined and some new paths were sketched, including the methodology employed here. Several discussions from different Web sites, each containing hundreds of posts, were tabulated and analyzed for the effects of inclusion of anecdotally-chosen token posts. Gauging authority and credibility as attention paid token posts and positive reaction to token posts, respectively, no correlation was found between token posts and attention paid them. One of three discussions showed a strong correlation between token posts and positive reaction, while two other discussions analyzed yielded results short of statistical significance. Suggestions were made regarding further work in this expanding field.

Margaret Sanger's rhetoric in the US birth control movement demonstrates the social forces that act upon rhetors and women's bodies, conforming both to established gender norms even as they attempt to violate those standards. This project studies Sanger's birth control rhetoric to understand how her arguments for women's right to contraception conformed women's bodies to traditional feminine notions despite her early efforts to contradict such dictates of domesticity. Research on nineteenth-century feminist rhetors demonstrates a pattern of women challenging feminine ideals by speaking publicly but replicating the familiar themes that women must care for others. To explain such a pattern, this study combines the theories of interpretation and genealogy to analyze texts' meanings with a respect for the ways that social forces conform speakers to already established norms and themes. This project follows genealogical demands for a complex history by discussing the discourses that challenge and support early twentieth century birth control rhetoric . Early themes in Sanger's rhetoric focus on issues of class and women's personal liberation. Analysis shows that Sanger begins by addressing the class oppression working class experience before engaging in class maternalism in which she condescends to lower class women setting upper class women as examples of bodily discipline. Sanger's early themes of birth control as women's liberation give way to an emphasis upon women using birth control to better serve their families, thereby fulfilling their maternal duties. Later themes in Sanger's rhetoric emphasize birth control's utility to the state for managing the rate and quality of women's reproduction. The movement from earlier to later themes in Sanger's rhetoric shifts from speaking about women as subject with control of their bodies to objects whose bodies must be controlled. Employing capitalistic themes, Sanger argues that women's rate of reproduction must be controlled to safeguard national security. Using notions of social evolution, Sanger engages in eugenic discourse to demand the control of women's bodies who produce unfit offspring. The sweep of Sanger's rhetoric proves the utility of genealogical interpretation to understand the dynamics of power and discourse that conform feminist speakers to accepted gender definitions.

The November 2, 2003, parliamentary election caused a significant political crisis in the Republic of Georgia. During the election campaign, the political parties questioned the desire of the government to carry out a fair election. They blamed President Edward Shevardnadze for fabricating the election. After the election, the opposition parties did not recognize the results and claimed that there were massive fabrications (the number of people who voted was much more than the number of people who were in voters list). The public supported this position, and several huge demonstrations demanded the resignation of President Shevardnadze. Two weeks after the election, under the pressure from all parts of Georgia, Shevardnadze stepped down. Since the main symbol of the opposition was rose, this event was called the Revolution of the Rose. This study analyzes the media coverage of the parliamentary election. The aim of the study is to examine the extent the government and opposition were able to affect news coverage. The study involves the descriptive content analysis of the stories published by three of the highest circulated Georgian newspapers 24 Hours, Resonance, and Alia from September 25, 2003 when the election campaign officially started, to the election day November 2, 2003.

Museums in general are shrines of collected memory and cultural values. The National D-Day Museum, in particular, presents the memory of World War II as a good and just action taken by the Allied forces against the evil of the Axis powers. In contrast with later wars, which might be seen as morally ambiguous or futile, World War II was and is thought of as "the good war." In this study, I explore and express how The National D-Day Museum encourages exploration and expression on the part of the visitor, using Gregory Ulmers concept and practice of mystory to analyze the museum as a mystory and also as encouraging mystory praxis on the part of the visitor. While the purpose for encouraging such a process may be to conserve the stated values of the museum and while that indeed may occur, it is my theory that the process functions in a more significant way than simply realizing the pre-determined intent. In brief, a heuristic experience becomes more important than a hermeneutic one. In this way, the museum prompts performative agency on the part of the visitors.

In this thesis history performs that which Della Pollock terms historicity in her Introduction to Exceptional Spaces: Essays in Performance and History. History as historicity is no longer an evolutionary master narrative that dictates essential Truths. Rather, it is a site for performance where unfinalized and partial fragments of the past cluster into stories that mingle fact and fiction. Historicity defines a space or an event where history is a doing. The performer of this history embraces agency, which she uses to place herself within history rather than dominate or be dominated by it. Observing history as historicity, Joseph Roaches genealogies of performance provide a method for my analysis of the performances of debutante culture as I represented them in Etchings of Debutantes, a script I compiled, and the performance of that script. This thesis traces the historical performance of southern debutante culture by comparing and contrasting various texts and materials, included in my script, Etchings of Debutantes, as equal co-texts. The script is a belated response to my skeptical performance of a debutante at the Augusta Symphony Debutante Cotillion in Augusta, Georgia on November 26, 1999. At that time, I was assured by my mentor to one day be able to creatively engage dialogue with my performance of the debutante ritual. In 2001 I began the dialogue by collaging a script of icons, photographs, invitations, magazines, fairytales, personal narratives, music, dance, film, and literature. The following year, I staged the script in the Hopkins Black Box theatre at Louisiana State University. Learning about Joseph Roachs genealogies of performance shortly after, I found genes or themes in the script and performance to insight new ways of exploring and interrogating my history performing debutante culture. My thesis engages scholarly and performative discourse with the cultural performance of debutantes by observing various representations of debutante culture in the script and performance of Etchings of Debutantes. Etchings of Debutantes, followed by its staging and the writing of this thesis, are all part of my continuous dialogue with southern debutante culture.

The constant process of technology development offers Internet users new tools, allowing them to enjoy their right of free expression. One of the latest popular tools introduced for use by mass audience on the Internet is a weblog (or blog). There are more than 4.12 million blogs on the Internet maintained by different people with different purposes. Some of the bloggers manage to create an image that makes them "celebrities" among the community of bloggers. These are the people whose blogs are among the most well-known and also regularly linked by other bloggers. Besides, media's view of blogging comes directly from this select "A-list" of bloggers. This research intends to contribute to understanding of the characteristics of these popular bloggers. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, it adds to the knowledge of verbal and visual characteristics, as well as demographics of popular blogs. Second, this research investigates impression management tactics and strategies used by the popular blog authors. Finally, it provides data regarding the common elements of popular blogs (topics, style, visual communication elements, etc.) that create ground for future research on impression management, employing the research of blog authors and their motivations and reasoning for using particular blog elements, as well as for future investigation of popular blog readers, and their impressions and reasoning for reading the blogs.