Thesis Projects
Our student researchers are breaking new ground in media studies, producing thesis work on a variety of themes related to social justice. Some members of our community are doing in-depth scholarly research, while others are producing work in the creative arts and social praxis.
Jennifer Johnson Avril, “But There Are New Suns: Activist Communications and Restoring the Ungrievable Life”
I explore Judith Butler’s concept of “grievability,” or how people who are war casualties are rendered “grievable” or “ungrievable” through major media construction and circulation, which supports the hegemonic interests of state power. Using this as a framework, I examine the activist challenge of restoring grievability to subjects of injustice where the media has framed them as “less grievable” and, therefore, as less of a life to be mourned by the so-called general public. Activist communication can have an impact on retaining the grievability of the subject and therefore defending the human cost of lost lives that the state stigmatizes, marginalizes, and discounts. I define three main methods of activist communication that can be employed toward restoring the ungrievable life: mainstream media seizure via narrative change or actual physical infiltrations of a mainstream media transmission; activist-made and circulated media including the independent creation and circulation of media by and among activist media makers and collectives; and the critical, living archive, a series of thought experiments toward interacting with activist archival material to pull forward marginalized and even forgotten subjects of state violence. The challenges and demonstrated successes of asserting the subject’s grievability through these methods hold important lessons for activists regarding how to reach audiences and inform or change their viewpoints beyond the often-frustrating work of simply “making them care”. Examples of each method are grounded in my background in HIV/AIDS activism but can be applied to any type of activism.
Sher Bano, “Examining Disruptive Feminist Discourses in Contemporary Pakistani Television: How the Discourse Engages with Popular Western Feminist Principles”
This study looks at the changing discourse on feminist issues in Pakistani entertainment television in light of, what U.S women call, second wave of feminism. It examines historical context of state and feminism and Pakistani television’s role in presenting mixed images and notions of feminism in the two entertainment genres of television: drama serials and morning shows. By analyzing disruptive discourses in Pakistani entertainment media in light of western popular feminist ideas, I will test my thesis that although Pakistani popular feminism has been hugely influenced by western popular feminism and continues to be so, contemporary Pakistani television increasingly diverges from western popular feminism towards one that more grounded in local, contextual and intersectional realities of Pakistan. The study is divided into four sections. The first section introduces theoretical concepts of feminist television across the U.S and Pakistan. It delves into waves of feminism, historical context of Pakistani television and images of women. The second section discusses Pakistani dramas’ both ability and/or inability to allow women to express their annoyance with injustices (as opposed to conformity), and to create mediated struggle for women’s inclusivity into the system. The third section explores the ill-conceived feminism of Pakistani morning talk shows and how they have reduced to mere selling platforms. The last section summarizes findings on televisual feminism in Pakistan in light of mediated/ popular feminism that originated during the second wave of feminism in the west, primarily the U.S.
Michael Bass, “Community as a Service: The Commodification of the Social Commons,” 2018.
Abstract: This thesis introduces the market of Community as a Service, or CaaS. CaaS is a product exhibiting three attributes: the community network is the mediating company’s core product offering, community members rely on some form of value exchange with the company to maintain their role within the community, and the mediating company is a for-profit institution. Using political economic and media archeological methodologies, this piece traces the economic, technological, and cultural context of CaaS. It then applies a McLuhan tetradic analysis to identify the biases CaaS brings to community formation. To demonstrate this, the thesis uses a media ethnographic approach to expose how these biases are reflected through three Community as a Service products: Meetup, SoulCycle, and WeWork.The study finds parallels between the Progressive Era’s community institutions and the CaaS market. Similar to how the Progressive Era’s model of institutional community was architected to accommodate lifestyles cultivated by early 20th century technologies and economic models, today’s CaaS model was built on a neoliberal hyper-capitalist framework. This framework applies “brand community” marketing strategy and Silicon Valley design, operation, and monetization principles to community organizing. This adoption of Silicon Valley principles, or the California Ideology, brings the biases of the digital to commoditized community. Biases include community serving as a performed activity designed to deliver personal betterment; the facilitation of “propriety social capital,” or social capital that is dependent on the facilitating CaaS product; the product being an unmalleable consumable in which members communicate through the service but are not able to operate the service itself; monetization, leading to greater barriers to entry and prioritization of the facilitating corporation over the wellbeing of customers; and a community architecture built to be quantifiable, supplying the best measurable returns for the company. This thesis demonstrates these biases through case studies on Meetup, a product transitioning from a tool to help communities organize, to a market of served community experiences; SoulCycle, a product using served community as a mechanism for personal betterment; and WeWork, a product revitalizing synergy between New Age thought and capitalism to create a profitable cultural movement focused on collectivist values.
Keith Bevacqua, “The Knowledge Brokers: How Old Media is Shaping New Education,” 2017.
Abstract: This thesis examines how the online education industry has come to be dominated by once traditional, or non-digital, global media conglomerates. Researcher Keith Bevacqua argues that the majority of online learning infrastructure is controlled by for-profit interests due to three chief factors: an industry wide push towards privatized education at all levels of pedagogy, the ongoing trend of media deregulation by successive neoliberal governments, and the continued commodification of information both inside the US and across the globe. In the first of five sections Bevacqua defines online education and traditional media organizations. The second section describes the origin of privatization in American education stemming from the work of economist Milton Friedman. Media deregulations (connected to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998) are also discussed in chapter two. The third section details the current online education space and the various corporate interests at play, directing attention to global education media conglomerates such as Pearson, RELX, and Graham Holdings. The fourth section presents a narrative of how media corporations came to control online education services and content. Special consideration is paid to the work of telecommunication theorist Herbert Schiller, education specialists Anthony Picciano and Joel Spring, and media academic Dan Schiller. In the final section Bevacqua reiterates that online education has come to be dominated by corporate media due to a variety of market, regulatory, and ideological factors. These contributing factors, including the privatization, deregulation, and the commodification of education media and related infrastructures, run counter to the goals of public education. Bevacqua calls for a renewed focus on creating democratically operated online education organizations removed from free market forces.
Josh Chapdelaine, “‘May I Interject…’: Analyzing Political Performances in Instagram’s Ephemeral Features,” 2019.
Azhar Fateh, “How Fashion Brands Co-opt Bloggers To Leverage Their Threat,” 2017.
Abstract: Social media has disrupted almost every major industry. Fashion is no exception. Fashion bloggers have become central figures not just in the reception of fashion trends, but in their communication and spread. However they are not the new gatekeepers of the industry. Major fashion brands have co-opted bloggers by selectively working with those influencers that align with their existing brand image to successfully leverage what could have been a threat to their control. Further, after exploring the various aspects of the work of social media influencers, I found that while the medium of fashion information is changing, the practices of the industry – like using labor for no pay and exerting strict control over their employees – are as widespread today as they were before the advent of social media.
Andy Gallardo, “Brecht and the Postmodern in 21st Century Experimental Theater”
Brechtian and postmodern approaches to performance in twenty-first-century contexts. A brief review of Bertolt Brecht’s epic theater and alienation effect, as well as posthumanism postmodern performance elements, as described by Richard Schechner. Contemporary live performance contexts in which these elements can be or have been incorporated, including immersive theater, LARPs, ARGs, and mixed reality. A short play.
Brian Hughes, “Communication Technologies and the Age of Arab Nationalism,” Masters Thesis, December 2016.
Jonathan E. Jacobs, “Fantasy to the Rescue?: The Children’s Middle-Grade Book Market in an Age of Anxiety, Political Turmoil, and Environmental Crisis”
This tumultuous moment in history, with the rise of fascistic governments, white nationalism, potentially irreversible climate change, and most recently the coronavirus is having a direct effect on the mental health of pre-adolescents and subsequently the medium of children’s middle-grade books in all genres. With a focus on the fantasy genre and its media offshoots, this thesis investigates ways in which the fantasy medium has historically spoken to the anxiety of children, how the magnitude of the current global crises have left adults unable to offer suitable answers or guidance, and investigates how a new fantasy media born from this tumultuous moment, beginning with books, might serve as a powerful immersive tool for middle grade-aged children to better interpret their current dystopian reality and prepare for the future.
Travis Joseph,“An Examination of Lynching Through Comics: Past and Present,” 2019.
Philip Mateo, “To Subscribe or Not Subscribe, That is the Question: A Look at Subscription Services in Gaming”
Adam Netsky, “Multiverse: a fictional exploration of algorithms and agency,” Masters Thesis, December 2016.
Maribelle Omar, “The Peso Participation: Social Media as Propaganda in the Philippine Drug War,” 2019.
Alex Piyamahunt, “Protecting Consumers in the Digital Age: Gambling in Gaming,” 2019.
Raphael Zaki, “Money as Medium: New Environments for a New Economy,” 2018.
Abstract: This thesis explores the disruptive potential of alternative currencies and their impact on local economies through a media ecological analysis. Operationalizing Marshall McLuhan’s tetrad for complimentary currencies requires we select each type of currency, (a) Local Dollar, (b) Time Bank, (c) Local Exchange Trading System, and (d) Blockchain to investigate what they amplify, obsolesce, retrieve, and reverse into when pushed to the extremes. The analysis shows that looking at the enhance and obsolescence axis of our tetrad gives us insight into the advantages each currency provides over the biases of conventional money. Local dollars enhance the circulation or velocity of money throughout a bounded economic circuit, obsolescing the bias of centralized currency towards the extraction of value from smaller regions and local business. Local Exchange Trading Systems amplify connections and interactions among its members, reflecting the community’s needs, skills, and values while obsolescing the scarcity of a means of exchange. Time Banks amplify the exchange of social value based in mutual service and care, obsolescing the scarcity of a medium to facilitate meaningful exchange. Blockchain technology amplifies decentralized peer-to-peer value exchange, while obsolescing the need for third party intermediaries such as banks, governments, and corporations. Looking to the retrieval and reversal axis of our tetrad gives us insight into the values which are being retrieved by complimentary currencies as well as the potential challenges to adoption embedded in their reversal. Local Dollars retrieve the demurrage money of Dynastic Egypt and the Central Middle Ages. When pushed to the extreme, Local Dollars relegate fiat money to the hoarder’s chest, leading to a drought of national money. LETS systems and Time Banks retrieve the intimacy of exchange, re-embedding economic activity into social structures of trust and reciprocity. When pushed to the extreme, LETS systems and Time Banks present a skills and service gap, leaving users with an accumulation of potentially unusable credits. Blockchain retrieves the anonymity of cash in a digital setting through cryptography. Bitcoin in particular retrieves the function of gold, leading to hoarding and speculative investment. When pushed to the extreme, blockchain’s decentralized value add comes at an immense ecological cost. This thesis presents complimentary currency solutions as a mechanism for encouraging new forms of exchange—new environments which promote ecological sustainability, community building, and local economic resilience. They seek to re-embed money into the social relations of community and trust, challenging the dominance of neoliberal capitalist discourse and utilitarian market values.