UMD Theses and Dissertations
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Item THE SOCIAL BASE OF MEMES: EXPRESSIONS OF IDENTITY, VALUES, AND AESTHETICS IN QUEER DIGITAL FOLKLORE(2023) Foster , Bobbie; Moeller, Susan; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Memes are a central part of digital communications and cultures. But memes are complex multifaceted expressions of identity and culture. Digital folklorists argue that memes, like traditional folklore, facilitate the creation of identity through socially constructed narratives that form unique groups online. Scholars across disciplines agree that memes rely on community participation, but the methods and theories vary widely. This dissertation advocates for the creation of Critical Meme Studies that centers critical inquiry to examine memes as a form of digital folklore that builds community identity, values, and aesthetics across social media platforms. The concept of boundary-marking memes is introduced to understand how memes build barriers of entry to conversations on public platforms. The methodology consisted of Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (Brock, 2018) and the pairing of Queer theories and methods related to the study of Camp as a form of detachment/attachment of political readings (Horn, 2018). As a result, the dissertation found LGBTQIA+ individuals use memes to construct answers to three core thematic questions, who is invited to Pride, what does Pride mean, and how should Pride look and feel. The answers used expressions of identity, values, and aesthetics to build responses that targeted in-group audiences.Item MEDIA FRAMING OF TERRORISM: VIEWS OF "FRONT LINES" NATIONAL SECURITY PRESTIGE PRESS(2010) Epkins, Heather Davis; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research investigates a critical tier in the global flow of information about terrorism. This qualitative study employs 35 in-depth interviews with national security journalists in the Washington, D.C. prestige press (Stempel, 1961) to explore their perceptions surrounding the collection, interpretation and dissemination process of terrorism news content. This study includes a review of the recent rhetorical shift from the Bush Adminstration "War on Terrorism" to "Overseas Contingency Operation" attempted by the Obama Administration. Rarely studied, but extremely influential, these particular "front line" reporters offer substantial insider knowledge on evolving trends in the news media production process on terrorism and national security. Their unique geographical position allowing for daily interaction among American governmental leadership, combined with their responsibility to cover what could be argued as one of the most influential topics of our time - terrorism - offers readers an inside view of the daily constraints, strategies and perceptions of this elite group. Data analysis adhered to grounded theory methods. Findings include evidence of new and evolving journalist routines with implications for public policy and the evolving integrity of journalist practices. Moreover, extending the published literature in the mass communication theory and national security realms, this research offers value by analyzing and describing the news production processes and perceptions - for the first time - of the D.C. national security prestige press. Reported results should also offer practitioners new insight into best practices and an opportunity for information users to better understand and evaluate what they are receiving.Item A MODEL OF WORK-LIFE CONFLICT AND QUALITY OF EMPLOYEE-ORGANIZATION RELATIONSHIPS: TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP, PROCEDURAL JUSTICE, AND FAMILY-SUPPORTIVE WORKPLACE INITIATIVES(2009) Jiang, Hua; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Good relationship management between organizations and their strategic employee publics contributes to organizational effectiveness. This dissertation built and tested a new model of employee-organization relationships by introducing time-based and strain-based work-life conflict as variables leading to employee-organization relationship outcomes, and by investigating the possible effects of transformational leadership, organizational procedural justice, and family-supportive workplace initiatives upon employees' perceived work-life conflict and relationships with their employers. This dissertation is an example of multilevel research in which all the theoretical constructs were conceptualized at the individual level, but data were gathered by conducting a survey of 396 employees in 44 U.S. organizations. The multilevel structure of collected data was addressed by using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) as the major analytical method. The findings suggested that the amount of time-based work-life conflict employees perceived significantly predicted their perceived quality of relationships with their employers. The lower the level of time-based work-life conflict that employees perceived, the better the quality of employee-organization relationships they had. When immediate supervisors respected their subordinates as individuals with unique characters and needs and treated them differently but fairly, employees perceived high levels of trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality. In addition, employees who perceived that they were treated fairly by their organizations developed quality relationships with their employers. This dissertation also identified fair formal procedures used to make work-life policies and decisions as a significant antecedent leading to high trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality that employees perceived. Moreover, the extent to which organizations administered fair procedures for work-life conflict-related policies and decisions greatly affected employees' perceptions of the time-based and strain-based interferences between work and nonwork. Lastly, it was revealed that time-based work-life conflict partially mediated the association between quality of employee-organization relationships and procedural justice referencing work-life policies, decisions, and procedures. Interpretations and implications of the findings, the limitations of the dissertation, and directions for future research were discussed.Item Public meetings and communication excellence: Exploring the intersection of public affairs and public involvement(2009) Patterson, Michael Aaron; Toth, Elizabeth L.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study explores how public meetings are currently used by government agencies and examines the meetings' effects on agency-public relationship outcomes (Hon and Grunig, 1999). The data consisted of 20 in-depth telephone interviews with public affairs practitioners in government agencies. The results suggest that practitioners perceive a fundamental incongruence in public affairs and public involvement efforts which extends to their frequent non-involvement in public meetings. The data suggests that this relates to contending responsibilities to both specific and general audiences. The discussion seeks to link these perceptions of publics and communication responsibilities to the relevant contextual factors of the public sector in order to examine theoretical prescriptions. The relevant theory suggests that the segregation of public affairs and the vehicles for public engagement limits the informational value of public input and relegates agency-public relationships to the role of process measures rather than communication goals.Item PUBLIC RELATIONS AND SENSEMAKING DURING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN MULTINATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN CHINA(2009) Luo, Yi; Toth, Elizabeth L.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study explored the role public relations plays in the sensemaking process during planned organizational change within multinational organizations in China. Three areas were examined. First, this study examined the sensemaking process during change within the participating multinationals. Second, this study explored how the multinationals used public relations to communicate about change with their employees. Third, the influence of uncertainty avoidance upon sensemaking during change within the multinationals was probed. Weick's (1995) sensemaking framework was used to explain the individual differences in the way events are understood and how those differences are translated into sensible collective behaviors. A total of 60 face-to-face interviews were conducted with managerial and non-managerial employees from nine multinational corporations. Several significant findings emerged from the study. First, change management can be viewed as management of meanings. This view helped explain why some change programs are accepted over others. The acceptance of change is both facilitated and constrained by the extent to which management is able to impose a plausible sense of change on events. Second, power plays a major role in creating an environment ready for change as well as resolving disparities of meanings. Top management sort out information and highlight it to employees so that their mental frameworks are framed to see the environment in certain ways. Third, negative expressions or behaviors by employees need not be perceived as acts of rebellion against change. Rather, these negative expressions reflect the difficulty that organizational members have while switching rapidly their sense of the organization during change. This study also found that the public relations function can facilitate sensemaking during change. Poorly planned communication programs during change can result in confusions from employees regarding change as well as distrust of management. Findings also suggested that cultivating dialogic communication with employees during change can help managers develop a shared understanding with front-line employees about change. Findings also showed that when employees could not reduce their uncertainties, they stopped processing information from the organizations. This study demonstrated the value of public relations to change management. It illustrated how public relations can help members of an organization understand the meaning of change.Item INTEGRATING STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT: EVALUATING PUBLIC RELATIONS AS RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT IN INTEGRATED COMMUNICATION(2009) Smith, Brian G.; Toth, Elizabeth L.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)There is a gap in public relations and marketing communication literature. In spite of increasing professional use of integrated communication--a process by which organizations coordinate the communication functions and activities for stakeholder impact--public relations roles have been under-developed in scholarship. In fact, most insights on public relations and integration appear to be opinion-based and normative. Hallahan (2007) has argued that the literature is "fragmentary and hardly conclusive" (p. 308), and other scholars claim that integrated communication research is still in its pre-paradigmatic stages of development (Kerr, et al., 2008) as research emphasizes definitions and perceptions (Kliatchko, 2008, p. 133). This research--a multi-case study of three organizations that carry out varying levels of integration--addresses the need to outline and evaluate public relations and integrated communication from a theoretical perspective. This study considers public relations a strategic relationship management function, consistent with Grunig (2006a), Ledingham (2006) and other public relations scholars. This perspective is in contrast with that of marketing communication scholars, who consider public relations a marketing support function (Keh, Nguyen, Ng, 2007; Debreceny & Cochrane, 2004; Hendrix, 2004). This study demonstrates that concerns that integrating public relations and marketing may lead to marketing imperialism and "an inferior technical role" for public relations, as Hallahan's (2007) review of the literature discovered (p. 305), may be based in opinion only, and may not represent professional practice. In fact, higher levels of integration yield a greater emphasis on public relations as a strategic relationship management function. This research also demonstrates that integration occurs naturally, regardless of organizational structure. In spite of varying levels of integration evident at each organization (based on the structure outlined by Duncan and Caywood [1996] and Caywood [1997]) integration is a natural process based on internal relationships and connections--a process I refer to as "organic integration." This multi-case study fulfills three challenges facing public relations and integrated communication proposed by Hallahan (2007). It provides a research-based definition of integrated communication, considers the theoretical convergence of public relations and integrated communication, and it conceptualizes organizational communication and department structures (p. 309-313).Item From the Belly of the HUAC: The Red Probes of Hollywood, 1947-1952(2009) Meeks, Jack Duane; Beasley, Maurine H; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Document: FROM THE BELLY OF THE HUAC: THE RED PROBES OF HOLLYWOOD, 1947–1952 Jack D. Meeks, Doctor of Philosophy, 2009 Directed By: Dr. Maurine Beasley, Journalism The House Un–American Activities Committee, popularly known as the HUAC, conducted two investigations of the movie industry, in 1947 and again in 1951–1952. The goal was to determine the extent of communist infiltration in Hollywood and whether communist propaganda had made it into American movies. The spotlight that the HUAC shone on Tinsel Town led to the blacklisting of approximately 300 Hollywood professionals. This, along with the HUAC’s insistence that witnesses testifying under oath identify others that they knew to be communists, contributed to the Committee’s notoriety. Until now, historians have concentrated on offering accounts of the HUAC’s practice of naming names, its scrutiny of movies for propaganda, and its intervention in Hollywood union disputes. The HUAC’s sealed files were first opened to scholars in 2001. This study is the first to draw extensively on these newly available documents in an effort to reevaluate the HUAC’s Hollywood probes. This study assesses four areas in which the new evidence indicates significant, fresh findings. First, a detailed analysis of the Committee’s investigatory methods reveals that most of the HUAC’s information came from a careful, on–going analysis of the communist press, rather than techniques such as surveillance, wiretaps and other cloak and dagger activities. Second, the evidence shows the crucial role played by two brothers, both German communists living as refugees in America during World War II, in motivating the Committee to launch its first Hollywood probe. Third, an examination of the HUAC’s practice of requiring witnesses to name names shows this to be an on–going exercise of data triangulation. Finally, the documents in the HUAC archives reveal an overriding concern with exposing the activities and practices of communist front organizations, which the Committee viewed as powerfully effective venues for communist propaganda. In summary, the newly available archival evidence, upon which this dissertation uniquely draws, indicates the HUAC operated in a less sinister manner than previously supposed and, thus, revises previous scholarship on the HUAC.Item How teen girls and parents make meaning of a cervical cancer vaccine campaign: Toward a feminist, multicultural critique of health communication(2008-12-17) Vardeman, Jennifer Eileen; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to understand how teen girls and parents of teen girls make meaning of an HPV/cervical cancer vaccine communication campaign. Factors that were considered in investigating meaning-making were personal, familial, educational, sociopolitical, and technological and media factors. Other cultural concepts explored were identity, difference, communication preferences, and medicalization. Using a cultural study approach and feminist, qualitative methods, 40 teens between the ages of 13- and 18-years old and 14 parents of teen girls were interviewed using focus groups, dyad interviews, and individual interviews. The study employed the grounded theory approach to data analysis. Overall, parents and teens hold resolute beliefs about the Gardasil vaccine and media about it, and participants are divided as to their favorability toward the vaccine and its promotion to them. More specifically, the data suggest that teen girls largely make meaning of the HPV/cervical cancer vaccine campaign through the sociopolitical and mediated relationships in their lives, and in particular, how the girls perceive and act around difference in their lives largely contribute to the ways they view communication about sexual health topics like HPV, cervical cancer, and the vaccine. Differently, parents largely make meaning of the campaign through the personal, familial, and educational aspects of their lives, for how they understand their roles as parents reflects a contradiction between their sexual lives growing up compared to their perceptions of how the media represent sexuality and health threats to their daughters. Overall, the data suggest that this campaign provides some empowering ideas and opportunities for teen girls and parents. However, the data also largely suggest that campaigns as such complicate not only decisions teen girls and parents must make about teen girls' health, but such campaigns also obscure how teen girls and parents know themselves individually, in relationship to one another, and in relationship with social and authoritative bodies outside their comfort zones. These data confirm previous studies findings in public relations, feminist media, and cervical cancer intervention research. The data also extend and combine extant research about culture, women's health topics, and communication campaigns in ways that suggest a feminist, cultural-centered health communication critique that encourages communicators to wholly reconsider traditional approaches to the origination, development, deployment, and involvement of communication campaigns involving women and teen girls and important health topics to them. Implications for health communication practice as well as feminist methodology are considered for similar future projects.Item SARS Discourse Analysis: Technoscientific Race-Nation-Gender Formations in Public Health Discourse(2008-10-28) Jen, Clare Ching; Zambrana, Ruth; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study's main objective is to analyze public health urgencies as socio-cultural phenomena produced in public health discourses with a focus on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Five questions guide this study: What claims do different social worlds make to constitute public health discourses that produce biopolitical subjects in raced-nationed-gendered formations? What are the central concepts in each social world's SARS discourse? In what ways is the socio-cultural construction of risk central to the discursive construction of SARS? In what ways does each of the social worlds produce biopolitical subjects in raced-nationed-gendered formations? What are the underlying public health ethics in SARS discourse? This study analyzes data sources across three arenas--science, media, and public policy--and specifically four social worlds--government-science, non-government-science, mainstream news media, and government-public policy. Data sampling units consist of written text and visual images published in public health reports, scholarly papers, newspaper and magazine articles, Congressional Hearing transcripts and prepared witness testimonies. The conceptual and methodological framework draws from numerous areas of inquiry: critical race studies; feminist studies of science; public health ethics and social inequalities in public health; media framing; grounded theory; and discourse analysis. Several discursive frames and configurations prominently emerge: (1) the War on SARS; (2) Oppositional Metaphors and Analogies; (3) Ir/Responsible Global Biopolitical Citizens; (4) SARS Risk Discourse; (5) Biopolitical Subjectivity in the "New Normal"; and (6) Face Masks and Metaphors of Un/Masking. In confluence, these frames yield a Trio of Human-Technology Figures. I consider this Trio an analytic construct in an APACrit-informed, feminist technoscience approach to public health discourse analysis. The overall SARS discourse, contoured by already existing narratives of race, nation and gender, rearticulates these narratives as a technoscientific race-nation-gender project. As an expression of public health ethics, SARS discourse manifests ethical tensions in relation to theorizations of justice. This study contributes to knowledge in women's studies, critical race studies, feminist studies of science, and public health ethics, by demonstrating the richness of public health discourse as an object of inquiry and the necessity of a critical race, feminist technoscience analysis of ideological formations that have social justice implications.Item Investigating the Investigators: Examining the Attitudes, Perceptions, and Experiences of Investigative Journalists in the Internet Age(2008-10-23) Kaplan, Andrew David; Heider, Don; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines how ownership type affects newsroom support, job satisfaction, and commitment to field by investigative journalists. It also explores agenda-building theory, asking if journalists' belief in their ability to reform the system through their work is a major predictor of job satisfaction. More broadly, the study examines the state of investigative journalism today by probing the attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of investigative journalists working for newspapers, and how these have changed compared with two decades ago. The study found that ownership type does not seem to affect newsroom support, job satisfaction, or commitment to field. Whether at public, private, or family newspapers, journalists across the board expressed great job satisfaction, fierce devotion to their field, and high levels of support in their own newsrooms, irrespective of ownership type. Regarding agenda-building, most watchdog reporters believe their work has substantial influence on reforming policy. Belief that one's work has significant impact has some predictive value for job satisfaction, but not for commitment to field. Investigative journalists today are more likely to contact policymakers to follow up the impact of their stories than journalists were two decades ago, yet still strongly believe the public plays a crucial role in changing policy--despite most empirical studies casting strong doubts on that. This research project found deep ambivalence about the Internet and its impact on the field. Highly experienced journalists tend to worry about the Internet and its effects on the journalistic process. Considerable skepticism exists among reporters concerning the role nonprofits may play in future investigative journalism. This dissertation uncovered a sharp dichotomy between how journalists view their own newsrooms versus how they view the industry at large. It also found that watchdog reporters today estimate they devote more time to investigative journalism than five years ago. Today's journalists still cite the very same factors that motivated journalists to excel almost 20 years ago.