This work provides cultural and political explanations on how and why cigarette smoking has increasingly become an object of intolerance and control in Hong Kong. Since the 1980s, the smoking population has been falling. Smoking behavior, sales and promotion of cigarette products have been under close surveillance by the government, medical experts and society at large. Cigarette smoking, as well as smokers, has increasingly been rejected and demonized in the public discourse. What are the conditions that make the growing intolerant discourses and practices against cigarette smoking possible and dominant? Why and how has the tobacco control campaign become prevalent as a governmentalist project, which is strong enough to tear down the alliance of tobacco industry giants? Why is tobacco singled out from other legal but harmful substances, such as alcohol, as an imperative object of intolerance and control? This work tackles these questions by adopting a Foucauldian discursive approach and the theory of articulation developed in cultural studies. By considering tobacco control as a historical and contextual practice, it traces the specific trajectory of tobacco control in Hong Kong, maps the cultural and political contexts that make it possible, and considers its consequence regarding the complex relationship among control, construction of risk, identity and freedom in society.

This is a study of how certain cultural differences between Japanese and Americans might be problematic in Japanese/American intercultural marriage.

<p>This study explores the current socio-political context of the Netherlands through an analysis of <em>Fitna: The Movie</em> (2008), the online video produced by right-wing politician Geert Wilders. I frame the field of analysis as an affective economy of uncertainty in the country, manifesting in the increasing visibility of, for instance, anti-Islam sentiment, declarations of national identity crisis, and public figures claiming to speak on behalf of the “real” Dutch, in the public realm.</p> <p>With photographic footage of Muslims condoning and conducting violence displayed alongside Quranic verses, and a blatant appeal to viewers to “Stop Islamization. Defend our freedom”, Fitna is both product and visualization of the country’s affective economy. To the extent that the conventions and codes of its context shape <em>Fitna</em>’s form and content, the movie provides a visualization of uncertainty in the Netherlands.</p> <p><em>Fitna </em>constitutes both the target and the lens of this analysis. I refract a close attention to the movie’s montage editing, violated/violent images, and use of photographs through the concepts of fear, offense and truth(-telling), respectively. Taking the movie as lens, my analysis elaborates: the experiential dimension of uncertainty, as the disorientation of globalizing modernity; the key figures through which uncertainty circulates, including nation, religion, Islamization and depillarization; and the affect’s primary representational mode as truth telling performance.</p> <p>Rather than explaining (away) opposition to Islam in, or the affective economy of, the Netherlands, this seeks to explore and experiment. I explore the character and mechanics of an affective economy through an experimental methodology centered on a single visual object. Given these objectives, the study closes with reflections upon the potentials and pitfalls of an analysis of <em>Fitna: The Movie</em>, with particular respect to popular narratives recounting the movie’s alleged failure.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Through a critical qualitative approach, four focus groups of exclusively white or non-white participants were conducted in order to discover the ways in which individuals enact and navigate whiteness in discussions of racial allies. Further, this study attempted to capture how white and non-white individuals may differ in their approach to this subject matter and in their recommendations for racial allies. Findings revealed that eight themes defined these interactions: “Whiteness”, “Experience & Voice”, “Whitewashing Advocacy”, “Polite Protest”, “(Dis)Comfort”, “White Fragility”, and “The Complexity of Allyship”. The study finds that while whiteness is frequently perpetuated throughout this dialogue and white and non-white individuals often differ in their perceptions of privilege and racial allyship, discussions of this complex tension resulted in a dialogic nature across focus groups, heightening the need for these types of discussions in advocacy movements and future scholarship.

Ideology is a powerful means of persuasion in contemporary audience appeals. Through the means of ideographic and fragmentary analyses provided by Michael Calvin McGee (1980, 1990) and Saindon (2008), I examine the rhetorical appeals made by the Liberty Counsel, an evangelical Christian organization, which provides legal counsel for cases regarding “religious liberty.” Through an ideographic and fragmentary analysis, I conclude that the Counsel utilizes the ideograph as a superseding means of denoting its ideology. Further, I argue that is the ideograph that represents the ontological nature of the organization’s philosophy and serves as the guiding principle for many of the other ideographs that the organization employs. Further, the ideograph displays relative influence for the Liberty Counsel with and from other organizations, as illustrated when is compared to competing ideologies, such as that from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The importance of the ideograph is incumbent upon its utility in understanding a “snapshot” of the rhetorical situation. Rather than attempting to draft ideological archetypes, as the initial ideographic form attempted, this new ideographic form accepts the relativistic cultural influences and accounts for them synchronically.

The retail sector in India is experiencing a shift from an industry dominated by small grocers serving the needs of local markets to one characterized by chain retailers, both national and international. The liberalization of the retail sector in the last decade has edged the street-vendors, squatters, and small retailers from the prime business spaces to marginalized peripheries, which had led to widespread localized protests by the small retailers all over the country. The Aminabad Market in a metro city in northern India provided a unique opportunity to study ongoing resistance against chain retailing. The retailers of Aminabad were at the center of the most vocal protests and organized numerous strikes that led to the government action. Within this setting, this study employed an ethnographic methodology to explore the narratives of resistance by the street vendors, squatters, and small retailers in a traditional market in India. The study further explores the protests that are constituted in ‘local’ market conditions; and how they can become the basis for universalization of ‘local’ resistance into the mass-based movements. For this purpose, the theoretical framework utilizing Harvey’s conceptualizations of local resistance movements as well as Williams’ concept of the “militant particularisms” and narrative storytelling were used in this study. To this purpose, the study examines small retailers’ participation, their use of communication strategies to develop resistance narratives, and the techniques used in universalizing the resistance. The implications of current study suggest that although the typical small retailers maintains a defiant narrative against chain retailing, the social, economic, political differences within prevent the formulation of a unified agenda that represents their diversity. The unresolved ideological, social, and economic particularities within small retailing have a divisive influence on their resistance movement. The study also discusses the use of “Participatory Action” approach for facilitating a productive participation among the constituents, which can be a way forward for future research. Participatory Action can actively facilitate the resolution of underlying ironies for reforming and recreating the institutions according to the small retailers’ needs and resistance discourse that reflects their collective expression.

I sought to link, through this paper, cultural performances of identity through storytelling in Ireland, Scotland, and southern Appalachia. I evaluated storytelling practices, whether it was a public or private performance, using symbolic interactionism, dramatist theory, narrative paradigm, and performance theory. The author studied abroad in Ireland and Scotland through the East Tennessee State University Appalachian, Scottish, and Irish Studies Program and experienced an array of stories. She then evaluated her own experiences with storytelling from growing up in southern Appalachia and visited the International Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN. The research is rooted in grounded theory from ethnographies, with themes emerging from the field notes. The themes reinforced the theories evaluated tied the cultures together through history.

Rhetoric, and therefore persuasion, can be utilized to impact society in profound ways. These communication devices can also be used for more sinister and nefarious purposes that can leave black marks on any society’s history. For the purpose of this rhetorical analysis, I thoroughly investigated three artifacts used by the Monsanto Corporation. This project attempts to show how Monsanto utilizes rhetoric and persuasion to convince consumers their products are safe to purchase, although there is no scientific consensus regarding that safety to humans and the environment. Through an examination of these artifacts, I was able to examine how Monsanto used apologia as image restoration during or after crises

This research analyzes campus discourse at a university in south central Appalachia in an effort to highlight the role of communication in the prevention of sexual assault and its powerful effects on communities and individuals. Using a critical feminist lens, this qualitative case study identifies the communication goals, interpretations, and strategies of two important speech communities who participate in sexual assault discourse on college campuses—campus professionals who communicate about the issue of sexual assault (issue managers) and sexual assault survivors whose identity is shaped by sexual assault (identity managers). While both groups talk about the problem, the parties diverge on the core function of sexual assault communication. Findings from these speech communities suggest the need for targeted efforts to decimate rape myths on university campuses, as well as the necessity to create safe spaces for survivors to report and talk about sexual assault and form solidarity with other survivors.

This research examines the effects of maternal incarceration in the United States with a specific focus on the short- and long-term risks to which children are exposed when they live with their mothers pre-incarceration. It synthesizes the pre-existing body of research concerning the effects of maternal incarceration and places it in dialogue with the author’s unfolding personal narrative—a story of resilience. Employing an autoethnographic approach and analyses of the letters her mother wrote to her while in a state penitentiary, the author examines her own life relative to the relational communication patterns between her and her mother before, during, and after her mother’s incarceration.