▼ Cinematic Apparatus Theory contends that the technological and ideological machine of “the cinema” acts on spectators in advance of and in addition to their engagement with film. This approach allows apparatus theorists to consider the effects and mechanisms of the cinematic machine more broadly than content driven analysis permits. This project seeks to employ elements of apparatus theory and determine if and how these theoretical models can be applied to the study of video games as a medium. In particular, this thesis examines the experiences and player positions opened and encouraged by the technologies of video game play. What this thesis demonstrates is the viability and potential usefulness of an apparatus theory of video games. Specifically, this work explores the nature of video game technologies which combine to provide users an experience of play and interactivity. This is facilitated by a set of technologies: code, computers, and interfaces which both allow users to engage the “text” of a game while simultaneously, partially structuring this engagement. What this approach reveals is that an attention to apparatus as a crucial element of play allows for a more complete understanding of video game use, user experience, and the structures of the medium. Advisors/Committee Members: Gajjala, Radhika.

▼ An example of social class stratification in sitcoms can be seen when a working-class character attempts to gain entry to an upper-class social environment, a formal dinner party, or an environment signified to read higher class - the opera, a museum, a fancy expensive restaurant - and they reveal their working-class status by their failure to assimilate. They use the wrong fork to eat the salad, they talk loudly in the audience during a performance, or, more frequently, they use visual and physical humor to convey how their bodies do not belong in the upper-class space. The working-class character’s clothes do not fit - a tuxedo too baggy or too tight - an awkward attempt to extend a pinky while sipping a cocktail, the adoption of a fancy walk, an affected accent to feign “breeding” or mispronunciation of a word to reveal a lack of “breeding”, or some other behavior that is supposed to inform the audience that this person is trying to fit in, but failing at doing so. The message is clear; some people just don’t belong and they should know their place. An example of this would be a restaurant maître d' who sneeringly informs the working-class character that a reservation is required, or jackets must be worn by gentlemen dining in the restaurant. In most sitcoms, there is an upper-class character who tries to maintain the segregation of the upper-class environment by denying access to the working-class character. It is worthy of mention that frequently this character is also working-class - the maître d' or another type of support staff character who gains access to an upper-class environment by serving the upper-class occupants. These characters are not actually included in the upper class, but they are allowed entry to the environment as they help to enforce the boundaries which maintain the segregation between upper and working classes, thereby facilitating and maintaining hegemony. These working-class characters differ from the excluded working-class in that they recognize a rigid distinction between the classes and even though they are not officially included into working class, they are allowed adjacent access, as long as they observe and enforce the class boundaries. In doing so, they demonstrate to the upper-class that they are willing to exclude members of their own social class in order to be granted entry - if only as a servant - to an environment in which they do not belong. This character also interrupts the myth of the American Dream and social mobility by demonstrating to both upper and working-class characters that there are ways to circumvent class stratification, albeit in a voyeuristic way - by excluding other working-class characters from this environment. Is the audience laughing at the failure of working-class characters to move out of their social class and ascend to middle or upper class, or are they laughing at the semiotics of the boundaries that exclude working-class characters from being allowed entry into upper-class environments? Probably both, as the boundaries work to reify the ideology that class status on television is usually static, (with a few notable but problematic exceptions) and the working-class character, by failing to realize this, makes a fool of himself by attempting to become upwardly mobile and fails to do so. Advisors/Committee Members: Berry, Ellen.

▼ This dissertation explores the political economy and cultural history of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It demonstrates how Wikipedia, an influential and popular site of knowledge production and distribution, was influenced by its heritage from the hacker communities of the late twentieth century. More specifically, Wikipedia was shaped by an ideal I call, “the cyborg individual,” which held that the production of knowledge was best entrusted to a widely distributed network of individual human subjects and individually owned computers. I trace how this ideal emerged from hacker culture in response to anxieties hackers experienced due to their intimate relationships with machines. I go on to demonstrate how this ideal influenced how Wikipedia was understood both those involved in the early history of the site, and those writing about it. In particular, legal scholar Yochai Benkler seems to base his understanding of Wikipedia and its strengths on the cyborg individual ideal. Having established this, I then move on to show how the cyborg individual ideal misunderstands Wikipedia's actual method of production. Most importantly, it overlooks the importance of how the boundaries drawn around communities and shared technological resources shape Wikipedia's content. I then proceed to begin the process of building what I believe is a better way of understanding Wikipedia, by tracing how communities and shared resources shape the production of recent Wikipedia articles. Advisors/Committee Members: Ekstrand, Victoria.

▼ Although seen as an emergent area of study, the history of video games shows that the medium has had a longevity that speaks to its status as a major cultural force, not only within American society but also globally. Much of video game production has been influenced by cinema, and perhaps nowhere is this seen more directly than in the topic of games based on movies. Functioning as franchise expansion, spaces for play, and story development, film-to-game translations have been a significant component of video game titles since the early days of the medium. As the technological possibilities of hardware development continued in both the film and video game industries, issues of media convergence and divergence between film and video games have grown in importance. This dissertation looks at the ways that this connection was established and has changed by looking at the relationship between film and video games in terms of economics, aesthetics, and narrative. Beginning in the 1970s, or roughly at the time of the second generation of home gaming consoles, and continuing to the release of the most recent consoles in 2005, it traces major areas of intersection between films and video games by identifying key titles and companies to consider both how and why the prevalence of video games has happened and continues to grow in power. By looking at a wide variety of games – those found in arcades; on home consoles and home computers; for portable devices included dedicated gaming units, cell phones, and other personal digital assistants; and games that exist in other forms, such as those found in web browsers or as bonus features on digital video discs – this dissertation illuminates a complex history that intertwines technological development, economic forces, and aesthetic considerations of visual and narrative design. Advisors/Committee Members: Shields, Ronald.

▼ The present research takes a cultural prospective on the tensions in interpersonal relations based on movies of the 90's, such as Sleepless in Seattle (1993), As Good As It Gets (1997), and You've Got Mail (1998). The romantic comedy films of the 90's were innovative in their genre, for they have touched upon serious drama subjects, hiding behind the “romantic” and “comedy' style. Through the prism of the semiotic analysis I try to analyze how cultural codes play into the formation of hidden conflicts in interpersonal communication, mainly loneliness. Umberto Eco's theory of the openness of the “author's message” permits to illustrate the many possibilities of interpretation by the audience of the given films. Advisors/Committee Members: Gorsevski, Ellen.

▼ This project investigates the implementation of place branding theory via documentary filmmaking focused closely on the local characteristics of a place/region. Employing a close reading of WQED filmmaker Rick Sebak's Pittsburgh History Series focused upon recurrent themes about aspects of Pittsburgh's unique identity framed in relation to rhetorical approach and documentary techniques, while also noting aspects left out of Sebak's films, this dissertation demonstrates the progressive potential of publicly funded documentary filmmaking to enable the residents of a given place to rebrand their identity and foster revitalization, independent of the expectations of city planners or corporate sponsors, and without sacrificing the diversity of experiences that give that place its unique character. As a whole, Sebak's body of work constructs a particular narrative of Western Pennsylvania’s identity that revamps some of the preexisting notions about that identity. As a project of self-definition and self-understanding, the Pittsburgh History Series provides the local populace with some agency in recreating its image, rather than being branded from the outside. The success of this place branding approach to documentary filmmaking for Sebak and Western Pennsylvania suggests that other cities and regions could use it as a model to take greater control of their identities and cultivate renewal. On the whole, this dissertation views Sebak's films as a series of reconstructions. While place branding aims to reconstruct a place's identity, the process of documentary filmmaking involves a specific reconstruction of reality in order to communicate certain ideas about that reality. In other words, through his films Sebak constructs or reconstructs aspects of Pittsburgh identity and feeds them back to the residents of that area. Particular aspects of this unique identity frequently emerge in his films. These recurring characteristics that he stresses include neighborhoods that retain a sense of closeness and community as well as ties to their history, a uniquely dedicated workforce that can innovate without abandoning the working-class values of the past, and a rich cultural life that is competitive with that of larger cities in terms of quality yet also more modest and accessible than that found elsewhere. This redefinition of Western Pennsylvania's identity seeks a way forward without attempting to completely discard all aspects of the region’s existing identity. This celebration of the region's positive attributes—and consequent downplaying of its more divisive and unpleasant elements and episodes—encourages pride among the local population while also enhancing its appeal to outsiders who might consider relocating themselves and/or their businesses to the area. Advisors/Committee Members: Berry, Ellen.

▼ This dissertation considers how heterosexual women’s sexual pleasure was negotiated in the popular and underground press in the 1970s, focusing particularly on two virtually unexamined parts of U.S. culture: sex magazines for women and woman-authored underground comics. Publications such as Playgirl, Viva, and Foxylady reveal essential differences between sex magazines for men and those for women, particularly how each type of publication addressed its readers through editorial content as well as advertising and marketing. Through the marketing of male centerfolds for women, women were asked to consider their sexual appetites for men’s bodies as equivalent to those of heterosexual men for women’s bodies. This project argues that sex magazines for women offered an evolving narrative of sexual liberation that was intrinsically wedded to, and in constant conversation with, the women’s movement. Playgirl and its competitors strategically embraced some of the tenets and language of the women’s movement while generally refusing to support the movement as a whole. This dissertation examines how the visibility and cultural influence of the women’s movement encouraged male magazine publishers to employ women editors as spokespersons. These women wrote often of sexual liberation, but they avoided engaging in any systematic critique of male power in society or heterosexual relationships. The final chapters take a broader view of the publishing industry and women’s sexuality in the 1970s. They examine representations of women’s sexuality in woman-authored underground comics, publications with titles such as Tits and Clits and Wet Satin, and the impact of these representations on sexual culture in the United States. It argues that woman-authored underground comics exemplify approaches to sexual imagery and women’s sexuality that emerged out of feminist consciousness. The authors of these comics negotiated their own brand of feminist sexuality and their work is indicative of what is possible when women’s bodies are oriented as the center of women’s sexual universe. The concluding chapter examines the ways in which the model of female sexuality proposed by Playgirl continues to engage with and influence discussions of women’s sexuality and the place of sexual imagery in U.S. culture. Advisors/Committee Members: Wheeler, Leigh Ann.

▼ This thesis describes the “First Emperor” exhibition as a rhetorical artifact that functions as a vector of shifting identities in the contemporary context of a global political economy that involves Britain, China, and the U.S. I describe how the exhibition’s content represents and communicates competing dominant narratives about the positions of Britain, China, and the U.S. within the global political economy that are expressed in terms of finance, culture, corporatization, and government. These dominant narratives work to reassert the colonial politics of Britain and the U.S. and, alternately, to assert the new identity of modern China as a world leader in terms of global trade in both manufactured and cultural products. I identify the visiting audience for the exhibition as an implied public of “global citizens”, which replace the conventional implied public that is hailed at museum exhibitions. The identity of the global citizen is more closely aligned with that of the corporate sponsor of the exhibition, Morgan Stanley, than with conventional domestic national identity. “The First Emperor” marks the beginnings of a new era of exhibition and display that has emerged in the contemporary context of globalization. In this context the conventions of exhibition and display of non-western peoples and cultures by western museums and curators is revised at the same time as it is informed by the genealogy of colonial politics. Finally, I describe the acts of protest and resistance that took place at the “First Emperor” exhibition and the privatization of the public sphere, in which the protests took place, as facilitated by the exhibition’s corporate sponsor, Morgan Stanley. As in the exhibition content itself, the ostensibly counter-hegemonic protests that took place at “The First Emperor” were multivalent in that they served to reinforce Eurocentric and Sinophobic dominant narratives at the same time as they employed strategies of counter-hegemonic resistance in order to communicate these narratives to the public audience. Advisors/Committee Members: Gorsevski, Dr Ellen.