1,720,989 research outputs found
Reproducing the Frontier: How Media Images Shape Perceptions of Natural Environments of Wilderness.
Full text linkThe visual image has long been renowned for its world-shaping abilities. This study argues that the worlds of images give life to visual cultures for how audiences go about “visualizing” physical space through images that blur the line between fiction and reality. This study attempts to uncover a longstanding myth of how visual culture has led to the social and physical change of the state of Montana, specifically in how the cultural myth of the American Frontier has been creatively reproduced through visualized entertainment to promote fantasy over reality for the purpose of creating and regulating power relations among territories, races, and genders. An analysis of the television show, Yellowstone, is analyzed to deconstructs how visual biopolitics shape and dictate a new frontier, maintaining oppressive structures throughout the natural landscape that imply relations of purification, exemption, and expulsion. This study begins by understanding what the Frontier Myth is and how it came to be, followed by understanding how it is utilized in the entertainment show Yellowstone, whereby the portrayals of territorialization, race, gender and agriculture are analyzed. Lastly, the study will suggest further research opportunities for future studies
Media and the Holocaust: A Comparative Thematic Analysis
Full text link67 pagesMedia historically shapes perspectives and creates normative ways of thinking. This paper will focus specifically on answering the question: How were themes surrounding the Holocaust presented within German vs. US media from 1938-1948 and how did they differ? This question will be answered through a comparative thematic analysis, comparing the themes presented in media artifacts from two different geographical locations. Media will be represented textually, graphically, and in film during this study, such as propaganda posters and both fictional and nonfictional movies. The scope of the “events of the Holocaust” implies a focus on things from how power was maintained by the Nazi party to scapegoat the Jewish population, to literal social opinion polls directly asking about respondents' thoughts on the event
Red-Baiting and Misinformation in Digital Congressional Campaigns: A Simmering Red Scare?
Full text linkRed-baiting — using terms like "socialist" and "communist" as political attacks, remains a significant phenomenon in American politics dating back to the first Red Scare in the early 20th century. While scholars have studied this practice during historical Red Scare periods, little research has examined its prevalence and impact in contemporary political discourse, particularly on social media. This mixed-methods study analyzed tweets from 488 Congressional candidates during the 2020 U.S. general election campaign to understand how frequently red-baiting rhetoric occurred, which candidates employed it, and its relationship to engagement metrics and electoral outcomes. Using Tweet Flash (a Twitter API), 268,320 tweets were collected and analyzed both quantitatively for frequency and engagement patterns, and qualitatively through inductive thematic analysis to identify key frames and themes. Using Cultivation Theory and other media effects theories to understand the power of red-baiting terms in campaign rhetoric. These theories combined to create the novel “Cultivation Model of Political Realities.” Results showed that while roughly 1% of tweets contained red-baiting (or adjacent) language, these tweets generated significantly higher engagement than non-red-baiting tweets. Republicans used red-baiting terms substantially more often than Democrats, though the practice was not clearly associated with electoral success for either party. Common themes included framing perceptually hostile nations as a Communist threat, characterizing social movements as Marxist, and positioning policy debates as battles between American values and leftist ideology. This study argues that rather than being confined to discrete historical periods, Red Scare sentiment remains an undercurrent in American political discourse that can be inflamed by certain conditions and actors.
The findings suggest that while red-baiting may drive social media engagement, it does not necessarily translate to electoral advantages, raising questions about its continued use as a campaign tactic. These insights are particularly relevant given Twitter's rightward shift under Elon Musk's ownership and the platform's potential role in amplifying inflammatory rhetoric during the 2024 election cycle, suggesting a need for both platforms and users to develop better mechanisms for identifying and contextualizing red-baiting claims
Robux IRL: How Games Can Create a Positive Impact on Children's Development of Financial Literacy
Full text link49 pagesThis paper explores the relationship between using Roblox and learned financial habits in children. Even as required personal finance courses become common in high schools across the U.S., we need to do more to support the development of financial literacy in the next generation. Video games provide the opportunity to make this education engaging and immersive, which gives kids the chance to learn by doing. Roblox is a free online gaming and game creation platform that currently has around 80 million daily users.
This research studies broadly how games and personal finance are being factored into education before looking specifically at the role parents can play in these relationships. It also analyzes Roblox as a platform to understand how different features and aspects of the platform influence consumer behavior in children. Through active parent involvement and honest conversations about the value of money, Roblox can go from being purely for entertainment and socialization to being a tool for building healthy financial habits in young people. The final chapter of this research is a new guide for parents on how to treat Roblox with their child and understand the economic and social implications of using it
Masking to Succeed: Exploring Identity Barriers to Competitive Drive in Online Gaming
Full text link35 pagesThe toxic social environment of online competitive video games is well known, but despite negative experiences, gamers from all walks of life are continually motivated to improve and engage with others in the name of competition, including those often targeted by bigotry, such as women and transgender players. While research on how identity affects competitive drive exists within the esports space, there is no standard inclusion of other marginalized genders, few papers standardize identity and competitive drive variables, such as personality and competitive indexes, and papers covering individual motivations and experiences within online social environments have only been published within the last 4 years. I surveyed and interviewed 10 undergraduate gamers who played at least 5 hours of competitive ranked modes in video games a week. I used the HEXACO personality index specifically because of its reliability in describing personality, and the Competitive Index because of its multifaceted approach to defining competitive drive. After statistical analysis, and after coding each 25-45 minute long interview manually using the Competitive Index as a coding scheme, I found associations between gender identity and Enjoyment of Competition, both quantitatively and qualitatively. I also found a negative association between Desire to Win and Honesty-Humility, and a weaker positive association between Personal Development Competitiveness, and Emotionality. Additionally, I found that while perceptions of online social environment interactions were generally negative, many found solace and enjoyment in competing with strangers, and others found ways around negative interactions to not sacrifice their competitive drive, such as playing in closed communities. While the methodology was flawed, and no significant conclusions could be derived from the quantitative analysis, these findings imply a complex relationship between individual differences in competitive drive and self-identity, and future research into personality as a factor of competitiveness, controlled for social environment, should be looked into
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Playing with Virtual Reality: Early Adopters of Commercial Immersive Technology
Full text linkThis dissertation examines early adopters of mass-marketed Virtual Reality (VR), as well as other immersive technologies, and the playful processes by which they incorporate the devices into their lives within New York City. Starting in 2016, relatively inexpensive head-mounted displays (HMDs) began to be manufactured and distributed by leaders in the game and information technology industries. However, even before these releases, developers and content creators were testing the devices through “development kits.” These de facto early adopters, who are distinctly commercially-oriented, acted as a launching point for the dissertation to scrutinize how, why and in what ways digital technologies spread to the wider public.
Taking a multimethod approach that combines semi-structured interviews, two years of participant observation, media discourse analysis and autoethnography, the dissertation details a moment in the diffusion of an innovation and how publicity, social forces and industry influence adoption. This includes studying the media ecosystem which promotes and sustains VR, the role of New York City in framing opportunities and barriers for new users, and a description of meetups as important communities where devotees congregate.
With Game Studies as a backdrop for analysis, the dissertation posits that the blurry relationship between labor and play held by most enthusiasts sustains the process of VR adoption. Their “playbor” colors not only the rhetoric and the focus of meetups, but also the activities, designs, and, most importantly, the financial and personal expenditures they put forth. Ultimately, play shapes the system of production by which adopters of commercial VR are introduced to the technology and, eventually, weave it into their lives. Situating play at the center of this system highlights that the assimilation of digital media is in part an embodied and irrational experience. It also suggests new models by which future innovations will spread to the public
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Play The News: Fun and Games in Digital Journalism
Full text linkMore than ever before we’re consuming news in strange contexts; mixed into a stream of holiday photos on Facebook, alongside comedians’ quips on twitter; between Candy Crush and transit directions on our smartphones.
In this environment designers can take liberties with the form of the news package and the ways that audiences can interact. But it’s not just users who are invited to experiment with their news: in newsrooms and product development departments, developers and journalists are adopting play as design and authoring process.
Maxwell Foxman‘s new Tow Center report, Play The News: Fun and Games in Digital Journalism is a comprehensive documentation of this world
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Data|Media|Digital Graduate Symposium
Full text link30 pagesD|M|D is co-produced by NMCC in collaboration with the Digital Humanities program in
the Department of English [DH] and the School of Journalism and Communication
[SOJC]. This year’s event was also supported by the Department of Indigenous, Race,
and Ethnic Studies [IRES] and the UO Libraries. Gabriela Chitwood, Zoë Gamell
Brown, Srithip Prime, and Jen McNutt-Bloom provided critical planning and
organizational support, with additional support from staff at UO Campus Print, IT
Services, and Catering
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