UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Empowerment

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    America's Sweethearts? A Feminist Discourse Analysis of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team
    (2022) Nowosatka, Lauren Riley; Jette, Shannon L.; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The “often imitated, never equaled” Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCCs) are self-proclaimed as “the premier cheerleading squad in the world,” universally setting the stage (field) for professional cheerleading. In 2006, “America’s Sweethearts” launched a hit reality television (TV) show, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team (DCCs: MTT), where the squad director positions the organization as empowering women in the opening the series’ 13th season. Taking this seemingly contradictory statement—made during the #MeToo moment of 2018—as a department point, this thesis examines the constructions of femininity and empowerment on offer in season 13 of DCCs: MTT. A textual analysis adopted from Johnson et al.’s (2004) reading for dominance methodology, with a theoretical foundation in feminist discourse analysis and intersectionality, was used to examine season 13 of DCCs: MTT, answering the following questions: 1. What versions of femininity are on offer to viewers of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team? How do they intersect with race, sexuality, class, ability, etc.? 2. How is empowerment constructed through Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team? Findings suggest that performances of femininity are aligned with emphasized femininity and ambassadorship, offering a homogenous image to viewers that idealizes and reinforces hegemonic beauty standards, the thin-ideal, and the objectification of women, paired with displays of emotional expressions, “intelligence,” and poise that subjectively position the cheerleaders within the larger patriarchal, late-capitalist Dallas Cowboys and NFL structures. Supposedly empowering to the cheerleaders, the discursive practices, enforced performativities, and productional strategies displayed on season 13 of DCCs: MTT, frames the institution as faux-empowering, endorsing empowerment as the product of making “correct” individual choices. Consequently, cheerleaders and viewers who do not make these decisions are rendered disempowered and made to feel shameful, contradicting the spirited nature of the sport. This thesis seeks to fill the gap created by the lack of critical, sociological discussions of professional cheerleading as a spectacle of late-capitalist, uber sport, permeated through popular culture and which analyzes professional cheerleading through the site of reality TV.
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    #Shebelieves, But Does She? Examining The Impact Of The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s Empowerment Campaign On The White Woman Millennial
    (2017) Brice, Julie Elizabeth; Andrews, David L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    In 2015, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) launched the #SheBelieves campaign encouraging young women to continue believing in their goals and dreams (“WNT Launches #SheBelieves Initiative,” n.d.). #SheBelieves is thus an examplar of a promotional discourse which utilizes ideas of female empowerment in a manner that contributes to the constitution of the postfeminine, neoliberal, millennial subject identified by numerous scholars (Genz, 2009; McRobbie, 2009; Rottenberg, 2014). However, much of this scholarship ignores the fluid, and oftentimes contradictory, nature of subjectivity, and fails to acknowledge complexity of the 21st century woman’s lived experiences (Blackman, 2008; Weedon, 2004). Therefore, this thesis uses semi-structured small group interviews to answer to what extent, and in what ways have young white women experienced, and been interpellated by, the empowerment rhetoric and idealized postfeminine-neoliberal, millennial subjectivity, embedded within U.S. National Women’s Soccer #SheBelieves campaign? The results are mixed: women did exhibit elements of postfeminist and neoliberal sensibilities with regards to their personal engagement with U.S. Women’s National Soccer; yet, the women also showed significant resistance, and thereby considerable agency, to aspects of the #SheBelieves discourse.
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    "BUT I'M JUST A LITTLE VOICE:" EXPLORING FACTORS THAT AFFECT RURAL WOMEN'S MEANING MAKING OF EMPOWERMENT AND HEALTH
    (2011) Austin, Lucinda; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This research study explores how empowerment can be incorporated as an element of health communication campaigns to positively affect rural women's everyday health activities. This study questions how rural women make meaning of empowerment and health, the factors that affect rural women's empowerment, and how health communication campaigns may bolster individual and community empowerment. Building from multiple theoretical--including empowerment theory, the situational theory of publics, the theory of planned behavior, the social cognitive theory, and a socio-ecological perspective--this study explores empowerment as a critical link in health communication and public relations theory. Dimensions of individual empowerment such as self-efficacy and perceived behavioral control were explored in more depth, as were other factors that affected empowerment, including social support, religiosity, and involvement as a construct of the situational theory of publics. This study employed a qualitative research method to explore empowerment through these rural women's lived experiences. Research was conducted through 41 qualitative, in-depth interviews with women residing in a small rural community; 15 of these women also participated in photovoice as a research method. Findings from this research demonstrate the importance of multi-level and multi-faceted socio-ecological approaches to health communication campaigns, involving communication at many levels such as the individual, organizational, and community levels. As findings from this research highlight, rural women's notions of empowerment may be impacted by their community and social interactions, their religious involvement, and their experiences with personal and family health problems. Physical and structural factors in women's lives also left them with feelings of powerlessness in certain health situations, suggesting the need for health communication campaigns to also address larger changes in structure and policy. Based upon the research findings and the prior literature, a model is proposed to aid in understanding of the factors that influence women's feelings of empowerment.
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    A Qualitative Examination of Gender and Power in Public Relations
    (2010) Place, Katie; Toth, Elizabeth; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Gender and power shape the practice of public relations. Gender contributes to power differences which may, in turn, influence an individual's strategic decisions and communication styles. Because male and female public relations practitioners make meaning of their roles as public relations practitioners differently (Grunig, Toth & Hon, 2001; Krider & Ross, 1997), looking at the profession from the viewpoint of women - and women only - provides unique insight into these differences. The purpose of this study was to examine qualitatively how women public relations practitioners make meaning of gender and power. Additionally, the study examined the overlap of gender and power and the implications they hold for professional practice. Whereas previous public relations scholarship has examined the concepts of gender and power separately, the secondary purpose of the study sought to examine these phenomena together. Literature regarding gender, gender theory of public relations, power, power-control theory contributed to this study. From the literature, three research questions were posed: How do women public relations practitioners make meaning of gender? How do public relations practitioners make meaning of power? and What are the intersections of gender and power in public relations? To best illustrate and describe how women public relations practitioners experience the phenomena of gender and power, I chose a qualitative research method which utilized 45 in-depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with women public relations practitioners guided by an interview protocol. I utilized a grounded theory approach to data analysis. From the data, arose several themes regarding gender, power and their nexus. Results suggested that women practitioners made meaning of gender through contrasting definitions, as a function of a feminized public relations industry, as a function of pregnancy, childbirth and family responsibilities, through expectations and discrimination, and as an intersectional phenomenon involving one's race, age and geography. Participants made meaning of power as a function of influence, a function of relationships, knowledge and information, access, results-based credibility, negative force and empowerment. Women practitioners communicated that gender and power intersected through use of gendered appearances, management style, women's bonding together for power, the queen bee syndrome, leadership, women's self realization and confidence in their choices, and education of others. The data extend our understanding of gender theory of relations and power-control theory of public relations. Results suggest that gender, for public relations practitioners, exists as a socialized and learned phenomenon. Power in public relations exists in a system and empowerment serves as an alternative meaning making model of power. Evidence suggests that gender and power do intersect in the meaning making of practitioners and that future research must focus on examining this overlap and educating students and professionals about gender and gender discrimination.
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    A DESCRIPTION OF MOVEMENT-BASED PROGRAMS FOR PRESCHOOL CHILDREN AGES 3-5
    (2004-05-05) Robertson, Martha Bratton; Ennis, Catherine D; Kinesiology
    This research examined how movement companies serving children ages 3-5 implemented critical pedagogical components suggested in the NASPE Standards for Preschool programs. The participants were directors and teachers of three companies who traveled to daycare settings. Three data collection methods, observation, documentation analysis, and interviews, were used to describe program philosophy and content scope and sequence as implemented and compare them with current best practices for this age group. Data were analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding. Findings suggested that none of the program directors or teachers was aware of the NASPE Standards. Programs varied according to type and degree of teacher training and beliefs. These two factors influenced teachers’ ability to provide effective programs and empower students to make decisions and solve problems creatively. Although all teachers reported feelings of empowerment, they varied in their willingness and ability to empower preschool children.