This thesis focuses on the use of feminist humor as a method of coalition building among African American women. It is motivated by the central question: what are the ways in which comedic performances may act as both a rebellious counter to dominant views of women of color in the United States and a way to articulate feminist ideologies? More specifically, I am interested in how African American women utilize comedy to articulate specific standpoints and build solidarity. As comedy is often used to persuade and perhaps bond audiences, it is important to continue research in the rhetoric of humor—especially that which takes into account comedy that challenges hegemonic systems and builds cohesion among oppressed groups. I wish to address ways in which theories of humor may work to include not only feminist modes comedy, but performances that also address the intersections of oppressions—including race, class, sexuality, etc. I will be examining the 2001 film The Queens of Comedy starring standup comedians Laura Hayes, Adele Givens, Sommore, and Mo’Nique. A follow-up on the 2000 movie and live standup tour The Original Kings of Comedy, the film depicts the four women’s comedic routines at the Orpheum Theatre in front of a predominately Black and predominately female audience. I argue that the Queens’ use of humor acts as a method to articulate intersections of oppression from a Black female perspective. This creates a specific counterpublic space, defies dominant views of Black American women and fosters cohesion among sympathetic audiences. The first chapter works towards a theory of feminist humor—one that builds off of current comedy research by integrating radical feminist thought (mostly that of Black feminisms). Chapter two identifies anti-feminist dimensions of the Queens’ performances in order to understand unsuccessful (and perhaps harmful) methods of rhetorical humor. Chapter three closely examines dimensions of the Queens’ performances that articulate Black feminist thought and how those performances encourage coalition building among Black women. Chapter four will draw critical implications and address concerns for those interested in humor as a method of encouraging social stability and change. / text

The aim of this thesis is to study Iranian women's struggle against the mandatory veil, based on Nancy Fraser's (1990) theory on subaltern counterpublics and Mia Lövheim's (2012) use of Stig Hjarvard’s theory on mediatization of religion. Specifically, how the Iranian-exile Masih Alinejad's Twitter can be seen as an alternative sphere in which she creates a mediatized subaltern counterpublic for marginalized women. The research questions are as follows:(1) How is Iran and the compulsory hijab portrayed in the selected material? (2) Can this portrayal be seen as a mediatized subaltern counterpublic? The material consists of 100 tweets from the campaign #WhiteWednesdays. By using a qualitative method with an abductive approach, I found four themes in the material. Research question (1) showed that Iran is portrayed as a stratified society where men are superior to women and that the public sphere constitutes problems regarding women's rights. The mandatory veil is presented as the most visible symbol of gender apartheid and religious dictatorship. Research question (2)showed that, based on subaltern counterpublics and mediatization, societies (especially with religious authority) exclude women from speaking in authorized discourse, which contributes to a search for alternative spheres. The study’s chosen theories proved to be a good fit for capturing, describing and explaining how Alinejad creates a mediatized subaltern counterpublic - via new digital media - for marginalized women whom have been excluded from the authorized and official capacity of the country. The results further showed how Alinejad participated in the mediated public sphere as an independent agent who engaged in religious issues from a position of authority. She continues to use the #WhiteWednesdays campaign as a space to perform activism against the regime's veil policy.

Through thematic analysis and based on the research questions; "Can the incel movement be considered marginalized based on the concept of counterpublics?" And "How does identity-building and feminist resistance manifest within the movement?". The study's goal was to shed light on how feminist resistance manifests itself in the manosphere. The study was delimited to focus on the incel movement and, more specifically, the discussion forum incels.co. Based on the results and the themes that have been generated, it can be concluded that large parts of identity form around sexuality and the hierarchical systems that the movement uses to explain society. In the creation of identity, sexuality and appearance are two central elements to be placed within the hierarchy. The movement also sees itself as marginalized to a large extent and shows a strong hatred of the progress of feminism, women, and society. Sweden's over-representation within the movement, calculated per million inhabitants in combination with more a more feminist policy may indicate that the movement can be considered marginalized in Sweden. The issue of incels as marginalized and counterpublics can thus be local and culturally dependent. The study has also shown similarities to feminist ideologies' position on structural differences and system criticism, but with a shifted focus to a matriarchal society. It should also be noted that further research on the subject is important in order to gain a deeper understanding of the group and the potential for radicalization within the movement.

With the growing need for a sociological understanding of behavior on social media platforms, there is a desire to know how marginalized groups engage with these technologies. This study asks whether queer people on Twitter utilize the platform to create a counterpublic - a group of strangers linked by a shared oppositional discourse to the dominant public discourse. To answer this, I compare the interaction patterns and thematic content of queer tweets with a previously identified Twitter counterpublic, Black Twitter, and dominant public, liberal and conservative Twitter. To locate queer Twitter content, I developed a process that intakes a starting term speculating where a community may be and finds hashtags used most by accounts that recently tweeted with the starting term. Using the starting term "#lgbtq," I discovered that #gay and #lgbt were the most used during the observation period. I also conducted this process to find the most used hashtags for the liberal Twitter community (#voteblue and #redwave), the conservative Twitter community (#trump and #maga), and the Black Twitter community (#blackpanther and #kyrie). By analyzing levels of engagement using a negative binomial regression, I find that queer tweets are significantly more likely to receive replies than those from the other communities. Using hierarchical cluster analysis and structured topic modeling, I conduct a content analysis that reveals that a large portion (70%) of queer tweets relate to pornographic content. Through posting intimate content, these tweets express oppositional sexualities excluded in dominant publics. I claim that queer people create a counterpublic on Twitter because tweets using queer hashtags show a higher level of commentary-based communication than the other Twitter communities and develop unique thematic content distinct and oppositional to the dominant public. Future research should build upon these findings to discover other avenues of queer online community outside of this narrow band of online communication. / Master of Science / In my thesis, I ask whether queer people on Twitter create an online community. To answer this, I compare how queer people interact and what they discuss with previously identified Twitter communities. To locate queer Twitter content, I developed a process that intakes a starting term to speculate where a community may be and finds hashtags used most by accounts who recently tweeted with the starting term. Using the starting term "#lgbtq" to estimate queer Twitter content, I discovered that #gay and #lgbt were the most used during the observation period. I also conducted this process to find the most used hashtags for the liberal Twitter community (#voteblue and #redwave), the conservative Twitter community (#trump and #maga), and the Black Twitter community (#blackpanther and #kyrie). By analyzing the levels of engagement, I found that queer tweets are more likely to receive replies than those from the other communities. My content analysis revealed that a large portion (70%) of the queer tweets included pornographic content. Through posting intimate content, these tweets express sexualities that dominant communities exclude. I claim that queer people create a community on Twitter because tweets using queer hashtags show a higher level of commentary-based communication than the other Twitter communities and develop unique discussion content. However, my findings are limited to a narrow band of online communication. Future research should build upon my research to discover other avenues of queer online community.

Por meio da combinação entre abordagem teórica e prática artística, a pesquisa coloca em questão o modo como os públicos são compreendidos e geridos no âmbito institucional da arte, particularmente no contexto brasileiro. Para isso, adotamos a mediação cultural como locus de investigação e atuação propício à confrontação de enunciados oriundos dos diferentes agentes envolvidos nesse circuito, desde os gestores, curadores, artistas e educadores até os públicos, cujas discursividades e performatividades correspondem ao foco do nosso interesse. Problematizando as formas abstratas de classificação utilizadas para designar e endereçar os destinatários das ofertas institucionais e das práticas artísticas por elas difundidas, o trabalho se imbui da postulação de um estatuto alternativo para os públicos, entendidos aqui como formações emergentes de sujeitos políticos. Isso implica a articulação de referências e precedentes capazes de contribuir para o processo de constituição de outro regime de interação entre os agentes institucionais e aqueles que seriam os beneficiários de suas proposições de viés educativo. A saber, um regime favorável ao surgimento, ao debate e à repercussão das demandas sociais, políticas e culturais manifestas por esses indivíduos e coletividades. Materializada na dissertação, a face teórica da pesquisa reúne e analisa conceitos, problemáticas e exemplos caros ao exercício crítico em torno da condição de público e das iniciativas institucionais, mediativas e artísticas que se ocupam de diferentes modalidades de interação com suas audiências. Já a sua face artística lança mão de um procedimento documentário, elegendo como recorte um formato de atração, organização e condução de visitantes amplamente usado pelas instituições artísticas para intermediar o seu acesso aos bens artístico-culturais. Trata-se das visitas mediadas com grupos. O Diário do busão: visitas escolares a instituições artísticas funciona como um dispositivo de sondagem e tradução das formas de atuação dos estudantes da rede pública de ensino nos equipamentos de arte concentrados no centro expandido da cidade de São Paulo. Com isso, busca conferir linguagem, visibilidade e circulação às suas respostas a uma ação institucional representativa das políticas de democratização cultural. / Through the combination of theoretical approach and artistic practice, this research questions the way publics are understood and managed within the institutional framework of art, particularly in Brazil\'s context. To this end, we adopt cultural mediation as a locus of research and action that is conducive to the confrontation of statements from the different agents involved in this circuit, from managers, curators, artists and educators to the publics, whose discursiveness and performativity are the focus of our interest. By problematizing the abstract forms of classification used to designate and address the recipients of the institutional offers and the artistic practices they disseminate, this work is imbued with the postulation of an alternative statute for the publics, here understood as emergent formations of political subjects. This implies the articulation of references and precedents capable of contributing to the process of constitution of another regime of interaction between the institutional agents and those who would be the beneficiaries of their educationally-directed propositions. Namely, a regime favorable to the emergence, the debate and the repercussion of social, political and cultural demands that are manifested by these individuals and collectivities. Materialized in this dissertation, the theoretical face of the research brings together and analyzes concepts, problems and examples dear to the critical exercise around the condition of public and of the institutional, mediatic and artistic initiatives that deal with different modalities of interaction with their audiences. As for its artistic face, it uses a documentary procedure, choosing as approach a format of attraction, organization and conduct of visitors widely used by artistic institutions to mediate their access to artistic and cultural assets - in this case, mediated visits with groups. The Diário do busão: visitas escolares a instituições artísticas [The big bus diary: school visits to art institutions] works as a device for probing and translating the forms of acting of public school students in the art equipments in the expanded center of the city of São Paulo. With this, it seeks to confer language, visibility and circulation to their responses to an institutional action that is representative of the policies of cultural democratization.

Turkey's most controversial religious figure is the Muslim cleric and author Fethullah Gülen, whose followers have established around one thousand schools in 135 countries. Since 2003, the Gülen-affiliated educational non-profit TÜRKÇEDER has organized the International Turkish Olympiad, a competition for children enrolled in the Gülen schools. The showpiece of this event is its song contest, in which students perform well-known Turkish songs before live audiences of thousands in cities all over Turkey and reach millions more via television broadcasts and the Internet. While the contest resembles American Idol in its focus on individual singers and Eurovision in its nationalistic overtones, the fact that the singers are performing songs associated with a nationality not their own raises intriguing questions about the intended message of the competition as well as about its publics. To answer these questions, I analyzed YouTube videos of the competition and examined YouTube comments, popular websites, and newspaper opinion columns. I conclude that the performers themselves are meant to feel an affinity with Turkish culture and values, while Turkish audiences receive a demonstration that Gülen's brand of Islam is compatible with Turkish nationalism. Moreover, the competition reaches a multiplicity of publics both within and beyond Turkey. While some of these can be characterized as essentially oppositional counterpublics, I find that, in the case of the Turkish Olympiad, the dichotomy between rational public and emotional or irrational counterpublic established collectively by such theorists of publics as Jürgen Habermas and Michael Warner begins to break down.

abstract: In this study, I examined how African American students in a church youth group constructed ethnic and spiritual identities as they engaged with community literacy practices. Arizona's small, scattered population of African Americans is reflected within participants' multi-ethnic schools where they describe feelings of being almost invisible to school agents and peers. Listening to students, I came to deeply understand how they struggled with cultural isolation and racial discrimination. The growing tensions with state immigration reform only magnified those feelings as participants perceived the ban on ethnic studies to be another attempt to exclude them from school curriculums. By using utilizing four identity types, I gained greater insights into participants' negotiation of ethnicity and spirituality. Drawing from critical race theory, I utilized counter-storytelling to not only recapture participants' experiences with social injustice, but also to illustrate how the youth group empowers the students to become activists. Resisting the paralyzing effects of racial stereotypes, participants emerged as essayists, artists, orators, and spoken word poets. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2011

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Spencer Wood / In this study, I investigate UndocuQueer activists and their use of social media as one type of subaltern counterpublic. Subaltern counterpublics are spaces marginalized communities forge to center their voices and experiences. These counterpublics represent aggregations of emancipatory agency and stand as responses to their exclusion or marginalization by the dominant public sphere. UndocuQueer activists strategically engage in the public sphere using social media because it grants them momentum and brings national attention to their agenda. In this research, I use an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach to understand the UndocuQueer social movement. The guiding research questions were: 1) How do UndocuQueer activists create subaltern counterpublics? 2) How do UndocuQueer activists present their multiple and complex identities on Twitter? Using critical discourse analysis of Twitter, I coded and analyzed over 600 tweets. To further this analysis, I used critical Xicana feminist standpoint to gather three testimonios of UndocuQueer activists. The major findings are of this project are: 1) the UndocuQueer subaltern counterpublic formed through the state’s anti-immigrant policies and the public sphere’s marginalizations and misrepresentations. 2) the UndocuQueer community forged an intersectional subaltern counterpublic online through their lived experiences as undocumented and queer. 3) the undocu-movements: UndocuQueer, UndocuTrans, UndocuBlack, UndocuAPI, and UndocuSolidarity operate coalitionally; thus, I call this a coalitional intersectional subaltern counterpublic. 4) the UndocuQueer activists use social media for community, expression and support of art, and organizing. 5) Lastly, UndocuQueer activists engage in multiple forms of activism via social media, such as participating in marches and civil disobedience and sharing events, workshops, petitions, and donation pages. Overall, this study provides a rich description of how marginalized communities, especially those of the UndocuQueer community, have great agency despite their precarious situation: a counter narrative that is usually unexposed. This project finds how the UndocuQueer community face multiple marginalizations and exclusions from the state through its anti-immigrant policies, the public sphere through its misrepresentations in the media, from LGBTQ communities and organizations, and from Latinx and immigrant communities. I show how the UndocuQueer’s intersectional and coalitional subaltern counterpublic forged online as a safe haven for themselves and to engage with the public sphere. With this information, we have find better ways to be their allies, support them, and listen to their calls to action.

Por meio da combinação entre abordagem teórica e prática artística, a pesquisa coloca em questão o modo como os públicos são compreendidos e geridos no âmbito institucional da arte, particularmente no contexto brasileiro. Para isso, adotamos a mediação cultural como locus de investigação e atuação propício à confrontação de enunciados oriundos dos diferentes agentes envolvidos nesse circuito, desde os gestores, curadores, artistas e educadores até os públicos, cujas discursividades e performatividades correspondem ao foco do nosso interesse. Problematizando as formas abstratas de classificação utilizadas para designar e endereçar os destinatários das ofertas institucionais e das práticas artísticas por elas difundidas, o trabalho se imbui da postulação de um estatuto alternativo para os públicos, entendidos aqui como formações emergentes de sujeitos políticos. Isso implica a articulação de referências e precedentes capazes de contribuir para o processo de constituição de outro regime de interação entre os agentes institucionais e aqueles que seriam os beneficiários de suas proposições de viés educativo. A saber, um regime favorável ao surgimento, ao debate e à repercussão das demandas sociais, políticas e culturais manifestas por esses indivíduos e coletividades. Materializada na dissertação, a face teórica da pesquisa reúne e analisa conceitos, problemáticas e exemplos caros ao exercício crítico em torno da condição de público e das iniciativas institucionais, mediativas e artísticas que se ocupam de diferentes modalidades de interação com suas audiências. Já a sua face artística lança mão de um procedimento documentário, elegendo como recorte um formato de atração, organização e condução de visitantes amplamente usado pelas instituições artísticas para intermediar o seu acesso aos bens artístico-culturais. Trata-se das visitas mediadas com grupos. O Diário do busão: visitas escolares a instituições artísticas funciona como um dispositivo de sondagem e tradução das formas de atuação dos estudantes da rede pública de ensino nos equipamentos de arte concentrados no centro expandido da cidade de São Paulo. Com isso, busca conferir linguagem, visibilidade e circulação às suas respostas a uma ação institucional representativa das políticas de democratização cultural. / Through the combination of theoretical approach and artistic practice, this research questions the way publics are understood and managed within the institutional framework of art, particularly in Brazil\'s context. To this end, we adopt cultural mediation as a locus of research and action that is conducive to the confrontation of statements from the different agents involved in this circuit, from managers, curators, artists and educators to the publics, whose discursiveness and performativity are the focus of our interest. By problematizing the abstract forms of classification used to designate and address the recipients of the institutional offers and the artistic practices they disseminate, this work is imbued with the postulation of an alternative statute for the publics, here understood as emergent formations of political subjects. This implies the articulation of references and precedents capable of contributing to the process of constitution of another regime of interaction between the institutional agents and those who would be the beneficiaries of their educationally-directed propositions. Namely, a regime favorable to the emergence, the debate and the repercussion of social, political and cultural demands that are manifested by these individuals and collectivities. Materialized in this dissertation, the theoretical face of the research brings together and analyzes concepts, problems and examples dear to the critical exercise around the condition of public and of the institutional, mediatic and artistic initiatives that deal with different modalities of interaction with their audiences. As for its artistic face, it uses a documentary procedure, choosing as approach a format of attraction, organization and conduct of visitors widely used by artistic institutions to mediate their access to artistic and cultural assets - in this case, mediated visits with groups. The Diário do busão: visitas escolares a instituições artísticas [The big bus diary: school visits to art institutions] works as a device for probing and translating the forms of acting of public school students in the art equipments in the expanded center of the city of São Paulo. With this, it seeks to confer language, visibility and circulation to their responses to an institutional action that is representative of the policies of cultural democratization.

This thesis examines the role of online platforms in relation to anti-progressive counterpublic dynamics. Counterpublicsare understood as alternative discursive arenas that form in response to exclusion from the wider public sphere. The relevance of counterpublics derives both from their ability to influence mainstream political discourse and from how anti-progressive counterpublics have been found to contribute to real-life violence. As the internet becomes an increasingly important venue for political discussion and contestation, the public sphere is extended online. This study explores how platforms can be seen as enabling (or constraining) the dual function of online counterpublics, i.e. as both inward and outward-oriented in relation to opposing publics, by examining the anti-feminist online community known as “Men Going Their Own Way” (MGTOW). The role of platforms is understood in terms of platform affordances, and netnographic methods were used to study these in relation to two online platforms. The results show that the two platforms presented different opportunities for the MGTOW counterpublic to some extent, suggesting that this counterpublic is able to utilise platforms for different purposes. Twitter was found to be particularly suitable for the outward-oriented function, i.e. for interacting with and opposing other publics, while mgtow.com was shown to be fertile ground for the inward-oriented function, and in that sense enabled contact between members in a way that contributed to the development of anti-progressive counterdiscourse.