Recent Dissertations
Full documents are available electronically through ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst or ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database.
Doctoral Dissertations
2020
Blackburn, Gregory. Military-Themed Video Games and the Cultivation of Related Beliefs and Attitudes in Young Adult Males.
Cho, Sarah. Negotiating Identities in a Korean American-Owned Beauty Supply Store.
Dinerstein, Anton. The People Who "Burn": "Communication," Unity, and Change in Belarusian Discourse on Public Creativity.
Lee, Jung-Yup. Nation Branding, National Prestige, and the Social Imaginaries of an Advanced Nation in South Korea.
Olson, Christine. Makerspace Models and Organizational Policies for Technical Inclusion.
Shavit, Nimrod. The Communication of Economic Rationality in Voluntary Corporations.
2019
Briggs, Rachel. Narratives of Queerness: Queer Worldmaking (in) the Classroom with Undergraduate Students.
Kepes, Gyuri, Framing the Crisis on the Merrimack Valley: The Opioid Epidemic, White Despair, and Authoritarian Populism on the New England Borderlands.
Myers, Brian. Gaming for Life: Gaming Practices, Self-Care, and Thriving under Neoliberalism.
Nikoi, Nii Kotei. Hiplife Music in Ghana: Postcolonial Performances of Modernity.
Pringle, Wendy. A Better Country to Die in: Self-Determination, Drugs, and the Limits of Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada.
Rodriguez, Fernando. Television and Perceived Control: A Longitudinal Study of the Cultivation of Powerlessness Among Millennial Adolescent.
Sibii, Razvan, “You Can Be A Good Romanian, But Not A Romanian”: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Romanian History Textbook Narrative.
Yin, Siyuan, Gender, Class, and Mediated Labor Activism, in Globalizing China.
2018
Gong, Yuan. Cultural Practices and Social Formations in a Reforming Society: The Transnational Fandom of European Football in China.
Kim, Bohyeong. The Moral Economy of the Networked Financial Subject: Cultures of 'Wealth-Tech' (Financial Self-Help) and Moneymaking in South Korea.
Martinez-Krawiec, Camille. Fearing, Tracking, and loving Sharks: Ocean Conservation and the Material Rhetoric of Human-Shark Entanglement.
Medden, Stephanie. Rights, Recognition, and Changing Borders: Latin American Activism in Post-Brexit Britain.
Odabasi, Eren. A Multi-Method Analysis of the Berlin International Film Festival and the World Cinema Fund.
Prince, Lisa. Conceptualizing Telvision Viewing in the Digital Age: Patterns of Exposure and the Cultivation Process.
Stephenson, Ayshia. Brooklyn Bedroom: An Ethnodrama on Female Sexuality, Third World Feminism, and Performance Ethnography.
Tao, Hui-Ping. China's Expanding Cultural Influence in the Age of Globalization: A Case Study of the Chinese Media in Kenya.
Twishime, Porntip Israsena. Asian American Heritage Seeking: Personal Narrative of Performances of Ancestral Return.
Zenovich, Jennifer. Prosperity, Post Socialism, and Post-Yugoslav Identity: A Feminist Communication Performance Ethnography.
2017
Boudreau, Tyler. Roughly Speaking: A Performance Autoethnography of Occupation, Aesthetics, and Epistemology.
Choi, Su Young. Movement Media, Energy Activism, and the Politics of Hometown in the Anti-765KV Power Transmission Tower Struggle of Miryang in South Korea.
Coryat, Diana. Extractivism and Resistance: Media, Power and Protest in Ecuador.
Wortman Raring, Lisa. The Help/hurt Duality at work in makeupalley.com Product Reviews.
2016
Berti, Silvina. Confessions in the Courtroom: An Audience Research on Court Shows.
Cerulli, Tovar. Of Wolves, Hunters, and Words: A Comparative Study of Cultural Discourses in the Western Great Lakes Region.
Correa, Ellen. Bootstrap Boricuas: A Family Performing and Exploring Cultural Assimilation.
Dorchak, Gregory. The Aurality of Rhetoric: A Hermeneutic Case Study of Cape Breton’s Rhetorical Music Community.
Kim, Changwook. Assembling Creative Cities in Seoul and Yokohama: Rebranding East Asian Urbanism.
McDowell, Zachary. Mashup Archeology: A Case in the Role of Digital Technology.
Shrikant, Natasha. “Race Talk” in Organizational Discourse: A Comparative Study Two Texas Chambers of Commerce.
Thibault, Rachel. Women, Convergent Film Criticism, and the Cinephilia of Feminist Interruptions.
Wemmer, Todd. Lost-and-Found Photos: Practices and Perception.
2015
Baldwin, Bryan. Democratic Potential for Multiplicity of Public Spaces: A Context Analysis of Media-hosted Discussion Boards.
Hasan, Fadia. The Formation of Youth-Led Participatory Networks in Urban Bangladesh: A Case Study of The Bgreen Project.
Lankala, Srinivas R. The Semiosis of Civil Society: Theorizing the Media in Postcolonial Polities.
Sekarasih, Laras. Parents’ Television Viewing and the Cultivation of Materialism Among Families with Young Adult Offspring.
Sotirova , Nadezhda M. “Of All, I Most Hate Bulgarians": Situating Oplakvane in Bulgarian Discourse as a Cultural Term for Communicative Practice.
Sul, Eunsook. “A Soulful Egg Breaks a Rock: A Case Study of a South Korean Social Movement Leader’s Rhetoric.
2014
Brzenchek, Alison D. The Cable Network in an Era of Digital Media: Bravo and the Constraints of Consumer Citizenship.
Diaz-Hernandez, Anilyn. The Colonial Legacies of “Fiesta Island”: A Critical Study of Live-Music Events Production in Puerto Rico.
Ferrari, Matthew. Signs of Wildness: Codes of the "Primitive" in Masculine Commodity Culture.
Herakova, Liliana L. Flying with the Storks: Communication, Culture, and Dialoguing Knowledge(s) in Prenatal Care.
Jelaca, Dijana. The Genealogy of Dislocated Memory: Yugoslav Cinema After the Break.
Kent, Stephanie Jo. Interpreting.
Nuciforo, Elena. Cultural Discourse Analysis of Russian Alcohol Consumption.
2013
Gu, Li. Intellectual Constellations in the Postsocialist Era: Four Essays.
Ingram, Brett. Critical Rhetoric in the Age of Neuroscience.
Karimova, Liliya. Muslim Tatar Women's Piety Stories: A Quest for Personal and Social Transformation in Tatarstan (Russia).
Lie, Sunny. Beholders of the Truth, Predestined to Be Saved: The Communication of Chinese Indonesian Reformed Evangelical Christian (CIREC) Identity.
Ng, Eve. Rebranding Gay: New Configurations of Digital Media and Commercial Culture.
Polk, Emily. Transition Network: Exploring Intersections between Culture, the Climate, and a Digital Network in a Community-Led Global Social Movement.
Sarkar, Sreela. Technology and Modernity at the Boundaries of Global Delhi.
Song, Shi. New Media and ICT for Social Change and Development in China.
Stephens, Niall P. Remember Where We Came From: Globalization and Environmental Discourse in the Araucania Region of Chile.
2012
Boulton, Christopher. Rebranding Diversity: Colorblind Racism Inside the U.S. Advertising Industry.
Greene, Viveca S. Irony and Ideology: Oppositional Politics and Cultural Engagement in Post-September 11th America.
Oyedemi, Tokunbo D. The Partially Digital: Internet, Citizenship, Social Inequalities, and Digital Citizenship in South Africa.
Rao, Sangeeta V. Engaging Identities: Globality and Communicative Practices in Education for Democratic Citizenship.
van Over, Brion. Beyond Words: Exploring the Cultural Limits of the Communicable.
2011
Bergstrom, Andrea M. Expanding the Third Person Effect: Parents’ Perceptions of Positive and Negative Media Effects on Their Own Children Compared to Other Children.
Brook, Joanna L. Reclaiming America for Christian Reconstruction: The Rhetorical Constitution of a "People."
Flanigan, Jolane. Utopian Gender: Counter Discourses in a Feminist Community.
Halper, Donna L. Neil Postman’s Missing Critique: A Media Ecology Analysis of Early Radio, 1920-1935.
Lee, Hunju. The New Asian Female Ghost Films: Modernity, Gender Politics, and Transnational Transformation.
Molina-Markham, Elizabeth. Listening Faithfully with Friends: An Ethnography of Quaker Communication Practices.
2010
Meyers, Erin A. Gossip Talk and Online Community: Celebrity Gossip Blogs and Their Audiences.
Salsedo, Carlos. Andrea and Me: A Digital Autoethnographic Journey into the Past.
2009
Bindig, Lori B. A New "Era": Media Literacy in Eating Disorder Treatment.
Click, Melissa. It’s "a good thing": The Commodification of Femininity, Affluence, and Whiteness in the Martha Stewart Phenomenon.
Liu, Zi-xu. Political Economy of Chinese Television Advertising.
McKenna, Susan E. Seeing Lesbian Queerly: Visibility, Community, and Audience in 1980s Northampton, Massachusetts.
Oberacker, Jon Scott. The People and Me: Michael Moore and the Politics of Political Documentary.
Tu, Haijing. Online Audiences for Foreign Language Films: Implications of the Internet as the New Cultural Arena.
2008
Boromisza-Habashi, David. Hate Speech as Cultural Practice.
Flynn, Peter J. Coming into Clover: Ireland and the Irish in Early American Cinema, 1895-1917.
MacLeod, Erna L. Words apart: Performing Linguistic and Cultural Identities in Chéticamp, Nova Scotia.
2007
Brown, Kennaria Charlott. Good Women Becoming “Queens”: Young Mothers on Welfare as Cultural Readers.
Lin, Ke-Ming. The Lacanian Spectator: Lacanian Psychoanalysis and the Cinema.
Lupo, Jonathan D. Accounting for Taste: Film Criticism, Canons, and Cultural Authority 1996—2006.
McClish, Carmen L. Social Protest, Freedom, and Play as Rebellion.
Paradise, Angela. Trait Aggression and Style of Video Game Play: The Effects of Violent Video Game Play on Aggressive Thoughts.
Poutiainen, Saila. Finnish Cultural Discourses about the Mobile Phone Communication.
Saito, Makoto. Silencing Identity Through Communication: Situated Enactments of Sexual Identity and Emotion in Japan.
Scollo, Michelle. Mass Media Appropriations: Communication, Culture, and Everyday Social Life.
2006
Butchart, Garnet C. Psychoanalyzing Communication: Language, Subjectivity, Symbolization.
Del Rio, Esteban. All of Us Americanos: Cultural Exhibition and the Rise of Latina/os Within a National Imaginary.
Isgro, Kirsten Lynn. “Real Women” and the Struggle Against Spiritual Forces of Darkness: A Transnational Feminist Analysis of Concerned Women for America.
Kemmitt, Alicia M. Active Voice and Community Engagement: Transforming United States Public Service Media Through Strategic Communication.
Lorencova, Viera. Becoming Visible: Queer in Postsocialist Slovakia.
Mierswa, Mark A. Emotion at Work: Stories of Teamwork, Stress, and Professionalism.
Stephenson, Denise L. The Politics of Help: The Rhetoric of Suicide and Suicide Prevention in the Mainstream Press.
2005
Doyle, Vincent A. The Visibility Professionals: The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Cultural Politics of Mainstreaming.
Gardner, Thomas N. “Framing an Execution”: Death, Lies, and Videotape. ABC “20/20” and the Rhetoric of Law and Order in the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Goodwin, Janna L. Applied Theatre in Corrections: Community, Identity, Learning and Transformation in the Facilitated, Collaborative Processes of Performative, Artistic Praxis.
Haynes, Janice L. Money Makes a Family: A Genealogy of Female-Headed Families, Welfare and Media Representations.
Hughes, Will. The Green Car: Television Automobile Advertising and the Environmental Attitudes of Television Viewers.
Huntemann, Nina B. Policy and Culture in the Digital Age: A Cultural Policy Analysis of the United States Commercial Radio Industry.
Huot, François. Communication and the Grammars of Child Protection: An Analysis of Interactions Between Social Workers and Their Clients.
Mackenzie, Lauren Benotti. “When Words Fail, Music Speaks”: How Communication Transforms Identity Through Performance at the Berkshire Hills Music Academy (Massachusetts).
Watson, Nessim John. Action Movie Arabs and the American Call to Endless War: The Role of American Orientalism in Organizing the United States “Response” to the 9/11 Attacks.
