Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item The Shift in News Media Framing of Violence against Asians in America: The Vincent Chin Murder Case and Its Legacy(2024) Browning, Sara Renee; Oates, Sarah A.; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The dissertation research project draws on the events surrounding the murder of Chinese American Vincent Chin on June 19, 1982, to examine changes in news framing of violence targeting Asian Americans from 1982 to the present. This dissertation argues that the Vincent Chin murder case, which lasted from 1982-1987, can be considered a critical turning point in news framing of the criminal motive for violence against Asians in the U.S. as well as framing of the Asian victims of such violence. The dissertation further posits that the case played an important role in drawing attention to anti-Asian racism as a widespread, persistent problem in America, helping to shape news framing of more recent cases of criminalized violence against Asians in the U.S., especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. The purpose of this research is to explore how journalists took notice of Asian Americans’ place in U.S. society as Asians in America transitioned from “fully assimilated model minorities” to racial scapegoats in the public mind. The dissertation accomplishes its purpose using a content analysis of news frames of the Vincent Chin murder case from June 19, 1982, the date of Chin’s death, to December 31, 2022, the last full year of news coverage of the case. The content analysis investigates shifts in news framing of the criminal motive for Vincent Chin’s murder from a random crime unrelated to race to a hate crime. Content analysis also helps to examine shifts in framing of Chin from a hot-tempered young man whose own reckless behavior led to his tragic end to a vulnerable victim worthy of racial justice. Furthermore, the study assesses correlations between key events of the murder case from 1982-1987 and shifts in press framing of the criminal motive and the victim. Lastly, the dissertation uses content analysis to examine similar trends between framing of Chin’s murder and framing of the murders of six Asian women at three separate spas in Georgia on March 16, 2021. This analysis uncovers how the Chin case played a role in more contemporary framing of violence against Asians in America. The research findings inform journalism studies scholarship concerning how news framing of criminalized violence targeting Asian ethnic groups in the U.S. gradually evolved. The study interprets the findings within the context of framing theory and worthy victim theory. Results indicate that although journalists initially both downplayed and ignored anti-Asian racism as a possible motive for Vincent Chin’s slaying, nationwide pan-Asian advocacy group protests played a significant part in drawing news reporters’ attention to the racial aspect of the crime. By the end of the Chin case in 1987, many journalists not only relied on sources to allege a racial motive for Chin’s death, but they also directly condemned anti-Asian racism in their news stories. Thirty-five years following Chin’s death, journalists continued to revive and retell Chin’s story in news reports covering the Georgia murder case. Journalists exhibited little hesitancy in stating directly that the Georgia murders were racial crimes representative of a chronic and intensifying problem.Item FRAMES, CLAIMS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN ONLINE MEDIA COVERAGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN VIETNAM: EVALUATING EMERGING THEMES AND ACTION.(2020) Nguyen, Hoa Thanh; Yaros, Ronald; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Vietnam is a country already being affected by the consequences of global warming and climate change. By 2030, the World Bank predicts that climate change will continue to impact Vietnam, with an estimated 400,000 to one million people living in poverty (Rozenberg & Hallegatte, 2016). Of the 84 coastal countries investigated, Vietnam ranked first in the predicted severity of sea-level rise and its GDP loss. The country also ranked second (to the Bahamas) in the magnitude of climate effects on the land and second to Egypt in the impact of agriculture (Duong, 2010). At the same time, Vietnam continues to depend on export and other labor-intensive industries, which consume the lion's share of the nation's energy and natural resources that are not yet environmentally friendly. This content analysis examines online media coverage of climate change in Vietnam through frames, claims, and public participation. The study explores the relationships between the Vietnamese media and their audiences through the lenses of public engagement and actions related to climate change issues. Results suggest that solutions, actions, and remedies were the dominant frames in news stories, supporting a blend of development journalism and a nation-building journalism model. The mainstream media in Vietnam determines, in part, the growth of the nation's public sphere because the media facilitates discussion and the dissemination of information among the stakeholders. However, public voices were represented only to a limited degree in mainstream media. Alternatively, self-funded and corporate-sponsored online media facilitated more public interaction and promoted the most public voices. This study contributes to the public sphere theory in a developing Asian country where climate change is being covered as a newly revived social issue. In that sense, climate change should increase the opportunities for - but challenges to - the governance of Vietnam’s administration.Item Teacher Interns' Written Reflection in College Assignments(2013) Wilson, Robin Black; Hyler, Maria E; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This exploratory study investigates preservice teacher written reflection during the full-time internship semester and trends across assignments, topics, and interns that may have a relationship with dialogic or critical reflection. Sociocultural theory serves as the theoretical underpinning of the study. The study applies Hatton and Smith's (1995) types of writing: descriptive writing, descriptive reflection, dialogic reflection, and critical reflection. Case study and content analysis methodologies are simultaneously used to address the research questions. This study reveals that interns engage in written reflection within all three categories (descriptive reflection, dialogic reflection, and critical reflection) (Dinkelman, 2000; Hatton & Smith, 1995), however, the overwhelming majority of reflection is descriptive reflection (95.8%), followed by dialogic reflection (4.1%) and critical reflection (0.1%). This study did not find a single condition, topic, or assignment that guarantees written dialogic or critical reflection. Instead, this study found that intern written dialogic and critical reflection appears to be an outgrowth of a combination of factors including, but not limited to, intern understanding of reflection, internship semester responsibilities, assignment design, and the role of the college supervisor.Item Values in the Net Neutrality Debate: Applying Content Analysis to Testimonies from Public Hearings(2012) Cheng, An-Shou; Fleischmann, Kenneth R.; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Net neutrality debate is an important telecommunications policy issue that closely tied to technological innovation, economic development, and information access. Existing studies on Net neutrality have focused primarily on technological requirements, economic analysis, and regulatory justifications. Since values, technology, and policy are interrelated, it is important to consider the role of human values in the design and regulation of telecommunications infrastructure. To analyze the role of human values in shaping the Net neutrality debate, this dissertation focuses on a corpus of public hearings related to Net neutrality that provide useful data points that help to expose the values of various stakeholders in the Net neutrality debate. Content analysis of testimonies from Congressional and FCC hearings on Net neutrality is employed to study values expressed by stakeholders. The major findings of this study include (1) the Net neutrality debate can be framed in terms of values expressed by proponents and opponents of Net neutrality; (2) there are differences in values expressed among positions, stakeholder groups, venues, and time periods in the Net neutrality debate; and (3) differences in values expressed by proponents and opponents of Net neutrality have changed over time. This dissertation advances the understanding of values expressed by stakeholders in the Net neutrality debate, informs the process of agenda setting and decision-making related to Net neutrality policy-making, and fills the gap in the connection between IT policy and values research.Item ESSAYS ON MARKETING MODEL APPLICATIONS FOR ONLINE AND OFFLINE COMMUNITIES(2011) Gao, Jing; Kannan, P.K.; Zhang, Jie; Business and Management: Marketing; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Social interactions in a community influence perceptions and values of members of the community. Recently Web 2.0 technologies have stimulated rapid growth of online communities, where communications between participants are made much easier. It is important to study how participants' behaviors and preferences are affected by their communities. In my dissertation, I develop quantitative marketing models to empirically study perceptions and attitudes of participants in online and offline communities. Essay 1 examines an offline community, distributor community in multi-level marketing organizations. We propose a spatial model to understand the determinants of distributor satisfaction and simultaneously account for biases in measures in the context of cross-country marketing operations. We define an attribute-space using measures such as sales momentum and effort expended on business by distributors. The relationship between distributor satisfaction and its drivers varies within this attribute-space and across markets. Based on survey data from a large multi-national multilevel marketing firm, we empirically illustrate how marketing control variables impact distributor satisfaction scores across countries after controlling for biases. We also discuss the resource allocation implications based on the study. Essay 2 studies an online community, online bargain hunting forum. We investigate whether and how online discussions posted by active participants affect the interest and preference of the silent majority. We collect data from a major bargain hunting forum. Our analysis of the online discussions goes beyond measures of volume and valence, and delves into the specific contents of discussions posted in the forum. We classify the contents into a range of specific categories, and develop a Bayesian Poisson-Binomial model to examine how silent viewers' interest in and preference for a featured deal are influenced by the discussions, while controlling for many other factors. Our results show that the content of discussions posted by active participants indeed affects the silent viewers' interest in and preference for a featured deal, and that the effects are different across the specific categories of content. Our findings demonstrate that marketers can benefit from monitoring activities in online bargaining hunting forums, and suggest ways for them to participating in these forums.