This research project has investigated how popular media images of Asian Americans affect Asian Americans' self-concepts, their views on other Asian Americans, and the perceptions of people from other racial groups. The subjects are almost all undergraduate students of from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and Boston, and they are divided into three racial groups: Asian Americans, blacks and whites. There are 538 students in the survey and 67 students in the focus group interviews (21 groups). Survey findings indicate that the respondents' general perceptions of Asian Americans across different racial groups can best be described as “model minority”: they are quiet, smart and hard-working. There is a major difference between perceptions of Asian American males and females: Asian American females are perceived as sexually appealing, but Asian American males are not. Although the survey has not demonstrated statistically significant and verified media effects, focus groups strongly suggest media influence on the respondents' perceptions of Asian Americans. The notion of media effects is expanded beyond behavior or attitude change. Media effects are evidenced when Asian American respondents reflect on childhood memories in which cartoon images of Asian stereotypes evoked shame, anger and alienation; when Asian American respondents use white beauty standards which are permeating in mass media images to judge themselves and other Asian Americans; and when respondents across racial groups use media images of Asian Americans to validate their impressions of Asian Americans in real-life. The third person effect, that media affect other people but not oneself, is strongly evidenced in the focus groups, arguably one of the first such studies done in a qualitative method. The findings of the study demonstrate strong implications for the need to teach media literacy so that students can learn to critically examine not only what the media messages are about, what they are for, and in whose interests, but also ways of changing the current media to be more open and democratic.

Thesis (M.A.). / Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/01/30). Written for the Graduate Program in Communications [Communications Graduate Program]. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation demonstrates the findings and implications of a study inquiring into the existence and range of models equipped to integrate new telecommunications technology in the classroom. The research methods employed included: (1) a discourse analysis of the socio-cultural narratives and quasi-solutions addressing the appropriateness and filtering of Internet content, (2) a content analysis of the print or online marketing strategies used to validate and promote the purchase of Internet rating systems and blocking software devices, and (3) a content analysis of various technology-based curricular programs funded across schools in Massachusetts. By adjoining bodies of research in media theory, cultural studies, and critical pedagogy, this study articulates a vision of critical learning directed at providing teachers with student-centered lessons in online communication content, grammar, medium literacy, and institutional analysis. Through the analysis of mainstream print and online media sources, my findings suggest that “inappropriate content” constitutes a cultural currency through which concerns and responses to the Internet have been articulated within the mainstream. Although government regulation has been decried as undercutting free speech, the control of Internet content through capitalist gateways—namely profit-driven software companies—has gone largely uncriticized. I argue that this discursive trend manufactures consent through a hegemonic force neglecting to confront the invasion of online advertising or marketing strategies directed at children. By examining the rhetorical and financial investments of the telecommunications business sector, I contend that the rhetorical elements creating cyber-paranoia within the mainstream attempt to reach the consent of parents and educators by asking them to see some Internet content as value-ladden (i.e. nudity, sexuality, trigger words, or adult content), while disguising the interests and authority of profitable computer software and hardware industries (i.e. advertising and marketing). The next component of my research describes the results of my analysis and assessment of 74 technology initiatives in Massachusetts' schools sponsored during the 1998–1999 school year through the Lighthouse Technology Grants. With few models offering higher levels of critical learning with and about technology, the final segment of my research outlines a model of educational empowerment over censorship through the theoretical and practical considerations of media literacy in cyberspace.

This study explores the meaning of work by focusing on the grammar of the term working among Acadian-Americans. The Acadian-Americans offered an exceptional starting point because of their deep pride and commitment to working. While the Acadian-Americans do not represent all cultures, they show how the meaning of working is dependent on the grammar of the term. Grammar refers to Wittgenstein's idea which includes the gestures, emotions, patterns of behavior, and rules that people may use in the way they talk about a concept such as working. This would also embody how the concept is organized (Wittgenstein, 1958). A grammar is learned by acting with others in a way that is coherent and makes sense to the participants. The study shows how the “right way” of working is dependent on critical features within this community. The Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) developed by Pearce and Cronen (1980) is used as a theory and methodology to analyze the situated interaction of Acadian-Americans. CMM, which has been largely influenced by the work of the American pragmatists, most notably Dewey, James, and Mead, regards communication as the primary social process. The analysis explored the stories told and lived by the Acadian-Americans about working and identified the logical and moral forces that were critical in enacting episodes of action. This study focused on the aesthetical aspects of experience and how feeling and action organizes and symbolizes experience. The consummatory experience of working, an idea first explored by Dewey (1934), provided a heightened sense of identity and membership in a community of people that act and feel a certain way about working. The study concludes that working is lived action and socially constructed through situated interaction. Thus, working can take on different meanings in different contexts with its own rules and practices that guide peoples' actions. This study reveals that working is not the same in all places for all people. CMM is a practical theory, and this study in the tradition of CMM and American pragmatism, offers directions for managers and leaders outside of the academy.

published_or_final_version / SPACE / Master / Master of Arts

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Communication

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur socialarbetare som arbetar med barn, ungdomar eller familj upplever att medier framställer socialtjänsten och det sociala arbetet, samt vilken betydelse det har eller får för deras yrkesroll som socialarbetare. Tidigare forskning visar att socialarbetare i både England, Sverige och USA uppfattar mediers framställning om socialtjänsten negativ. Socialarbetare känner även oro för att det i sin tur leder till att professionens status påverkas negativt. För att få en förståelse för ämnet har vi till störst del använt oss av vetenskapligt granskade artiklar från USA, England och Sverige. Studien baseras på fem semistrukturerade intervjuer med socialarbetare i Sverige från både stor- och mellanstad som arbetar inom socialtjänsten. Som teoretisk utgångspunkt använder vi begreppen skuldkultur, moralisk panik och makt, utifrån dessa begrepp kommer vi att analysera vår empiri. Resultatet visar att socialarbetarna som vi intervjuat upplever att den bild som medier ger av socialtjänsten är negativ.

This dissertation draws from and contributes to many traditions within the (interdisciplinary) discipline of communication studies. Serving the two primary objectives of the examination of the figure of the BMX freestyle cycling Pro and the analysis of the role of the magazines within this particular culture or field in the construction and maintenance of this figure, this project brings together studies of cultural intermediaries, magazine history, advertising history and theory, subcultures, audiences, commodification, cultural industries, celebrity, stars and professional athletes. The culture of BMX freestyle cycling is an interesting and heretofore unexamined phenomenon, and a focused examination allows the exploration and investigation of larger questions within the discipline. As such, this dissertation provides an informed interpretation of the culture of BMX freestyle, allows the examination of a number of other issues concerning the mediation of cultural practices, and suggests a theory of the special-interest magazine, thus contributing substantively to various literatures. / Special-interest magazines are a part of a larger system and industries within which the ultimate goal is the sale of commodities. At the same time, they function as a site of credibility within a larger field, both conferring star status on particular individuals and approving particular commodities that are being offered to the readers. Special-interest magazines construct and sell audiences to advertisers, create star systems, propose candidates for stardom, help build image careers, contribute substantially to a "star currency" within the particular field, negotiate (i.e.; mediate) tensions between the advertisers, the stars, and the readers, help organize the time of a culture and work to infuse it with a sense of vitality through the punctual and ritualistic appearance of novel content, assist the consumer with their desires for commodities and stars by standing as catalogues of commodities (serving to educate newcomers in the protocol of the culture), provide new financial opportunities (such as the commodity form of the photo contingency), and in their complicity with the needs of those that provide their primary source of revenue, give more value to the advertising dollar in the construction of editorial content that could be seen as advertising.

Overall, this thesis purports to make two significant contributions to knowledge. The first is a foundational critique of political economy in the context of an emergent global knowledge economy. The second is a method for analysing evaluations in language. The relationships that give coherence to those two contributions are as follows. The widely-heralded emergence of a knowledge economy indicates that more intimate aspects of human activity have become exposed to commodification on a massive scale, specifically, activities associated with thought and language. Correspondingly, more abstract forms of value have developed as the products of thought and language have become dominant commodity forms. Historical investigation shows that value has moved from an objective category in political economy, pertaining to such substances as precious metals and land, to become situated today predominantly in “expert” expressions of language, or more precisely, their institutional contexts of production. These are now propagated and circulated on a global scale. Legal, political, and technological developments are key in the development of new, more abstract forms of labour and value, although the relationships connecting these are neither simple nor direct. They are, however, inseparably related in the trajectories that this thesis describes. Consequently they are dealt with inseparably throughout.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Münster, 2006. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-227).