College of Arts & Humanities
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1611
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item The Following Message Might Make You Mad: Forewarning and Inoculation Against Reactance(2011) Magid, Yoav; Turner, Monique M; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)If a persuasive attempt, be it a commercial advertisement, a Public Service Announcement, or a major public health campaign, threatens individuals' perceived freedom to make their own choices, psychological reactance can cause the attempt to be ineffective or even to backfire. Extant research points to two major ways of reducing reactance, the first being weakening the language of the persuasive message, and the second offering a freedom-restoring postscript. In the present research, a method to nip reactance in its bud by forewarning and inoculating individuals against their impending reactant state is proposed and experimentally tested. The data suggested that forewarning individuals against reactance made them more reactant, but inoculating them had no effect. In terms of boomerang effect, forewarning and inoculating seemed to work (marginally) for women, but backfire for men. Implications are discussed.Item The Capital of Diversity: Difference, Development, and Placemaking in Washington, D.C.(2011) Maher, Justin Thomas; Sies, Mary C.; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Diversity has long been a part of the urban landscape, both as a demographic fact and as a valuable commodity used to attract development. Both kinds of diversity move through Columbia Heights, the rapidly (re)developing neighborhood in Washington D.C. that serves as my case study. It is home to residents of varying racial, ethnic, sexuality and class-based identifications as well as the rhetoric that selectively values them. In this dissertation, I argue that a rhetorical commitment to diversity has been an integral part of uneven development in Columbia Heights. It is the cornerstone of neoliberal development, a process in which government subsidized, private development benefits middle and upper-middle class (often white) residents, while low-income residents of color are increasingly denied quality housing, employment, and education. This interdisciplinary project draws on urban, cultural, ethnic, and queer studies scholarship to illustrate how representations of difference affect material development. I argue that they create ideological "maps" of the neighborhood that value some markers of difference while erasing and policing others. In turn, these maps guide who invests in the neighborhood and who belongs where. I chart how representations have changed over time, from the appropriation of civil rights rhetoric in the mid to late 20th century, to more recent multicultural imagery and gay-led gentrification narratives used to sell a "new," upscale Columbia Heights. Using a mixed methodology of textual and ethnographic analysis, I examine different sites of discursive production: city planning documents, real estate marketing, and an online neighborhood listserv. I also interview longtime and incoming Columbia Heights residents with various social locations, illustrating how dominant narratives of difference and development are reinforced and/or challenged among residents. This project expands existing development, gentrification, and gay enclave scholarship. It challenges singular analyses of difference and examines how multiple markers of difference affect spaces. All middle-class newcomers are not white, nor are all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer residents middle-class. In addition to suggesting policy solutions, I suggest how "contact" between residents of different social locations has the potential to counteract uneven development and the discourse that reinforces it.Item "Beans are Bullets" and "Of Course I Can!" Exhibiting War-Era Posters from the Collection of the National Agriculture Library(2009) Bernat, Cory A.; Freund, David M; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)An exhibit of food and agriculture posters in the Special Collection of the National Agriculture Library will display posters from World Wars I and II side by side. What did these messages look like and how did they change over time? Public servants produced the earlier WWI posters to reflect "reason-why" approaches to mass communication. During WWII, the Advertising Council's business-minded admen produced posters with their techniques for modern advertising and mass persuasion. Poster text shortened, the tone lightened and images were more frequent and splashier. This collection of posters bears witness to the professionalization and rising influence of the advertising industry in the 1920s and 30s, and reveals the agendas of the creators and their assumptions about homefront populations. The posters raise questions about the sources and ambitions of government sponsored messages designed to encourage cooperation with war efforts and modify homefront behavior.