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  • 1. Moot, Dennis Visual Culture, Crises Discourse and the Politics of Representation: Alternative Visions of Africa in Film and News Media

    Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

    This dissertation explores the role of African media in shaping Africa's image through both the analysis of newspapers over the course of the 2014 Ebola crisis and an exploration of African films. This methodology redeploys aspects of Africa's (in)visibility in global politics and discourse on representation in geopolitics. Placing African film and media organizations at the center of analysis in this study is vital, as they add diversity of voices to the conversation about Africa's image in the media. The dissertation looks at how Africa is framed as perpetually “in crisis.” Specifically, the research engages analysis of African film and media depictions under the premise of crises to advance Africa's visual culture and representation. I am interested in exploring how coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in The Inquirer, a major English newspaper in Liberia, compares with that in the New York Times coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Likewise, I explore how African cinema frames and represents crisis through three films – Xala (Ousmane Sembene, 1975); Pumzi (Wanuri Kahiu, 2009); and Les Saignantes (Jean-Pierre Bekolo, 2005). I argue that African films speak to the possibility of positive anticipated outcomes ignored by western scholars, and, therefore, possess the agency to decolonize minds. For instance, Pumzi and Les Saignantes offer an outlook on Africa's challenges and possibilities through newly imagined futures. Precisely, the selected films first address Africa's crisis in relation to the political, economic, and environmental struggle as well as gender discourses and, second, offer a prescription of development and progress. How do African filmmakers and media personnel, through their various creative works, reconstruct Africa's global identity? Finally, I advance that this research gives voice to how Africa frames crisis. This dissertation interrogates an unbalanced global power structure that has been typically Eurocentric. Taking an opposing pos (open full item for complete abstract)

    Committee: Andrea Frohne (Committee Chair); Erin Schlumpf (Committee Co-Chair); Steve Howard (Committee Member); Ghirmai Negash (Committee Member) Subjects: African History; African Literature; African Studies; Art Criticism; Art Education; Art History; Communication; Comparative Literature; Mass Communications; Mass Media
  • 2. Bonaparte, Rachel REPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN YOUTH IN MENACE II SOCIETY

    Master of Arts, Miami University, 2010, Mass Communication

    Media and society have always shared a mutual fascination in regard to gang life, especially through the use of “hood” films like Menace II Society. Stereotypical images of African American youth continue to exist and are extremely prevalent within this film. Over the years, African American youth seem to be depicted less and less in versatile roles, if depicted at all in Hollywood films, and is an issue that requires further examination. Through the use of frame analyses with social comparison theory as the theoretical base, this research examines messages regarding drugs/crime, family, and education and possible interpretations based on this film. Furthermore, this research discusses the possible impact these messages may have on youths' self-perceptions. Results indicate that crime/violence tends to be seen as a form of power, drugs as a form of wealth, the black family as resilient and non-traditional in its family structure, and education as insignificant.

    Committee: Bruce Drushel Dr (Committee Chair); Ronald Scott Dr. (Committee Member); Susan Mosley-Howard Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Communication; Education; Families and Family Life; Film Studies
  • 3. Prince, Rob Say Hello to My Little Friend: De Palma's Scarface, Cinema Spectatorship, and the Hip Hop Gangsta as Urban Superhero

    Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2009, American Culture Studies/Communication

    The objective of the study is to intervene in the ongoing discourse that interrogates the relationship between fictional ultraviolent film representations and real life behavior in audiences that these types of films are marketed to. Using a case study approach to apparatus and audience reception theories, the dissertation investigates the significant role Scarface, the 1983 gangster film directed by Brian De Palma, has played in influencing the cultural and social development of young African-American males who live in American inner cities. The study focuses on how the inner city portion of the Scarface audience came to self-identify themselves as “gangstas” (a Hip-hop term for gangster) and why one particular character in the film, a murderous drug dealer, has served as the gangsta role model for heroic behavior for over twenty-five years.The study found that performing the gangsta male identity emotionally satisfies these economic and socially disconnected young men and that this group viewed the violent and illegal behavior in Scarface as offering practical solutions to their ongoing struggle to survive the hopelessness and terror rooted in their environment. The research demonstrated that film narratives can be both a window into, and a mirror of, the often paradoxically complex relationships between marginalized target audiences and savvy multi-national media corporations that successfully market negative representations to these audiences, profit from the transactions and, during the process, manipulate both mainstream and oppositional perceptions of class, race, and power.

    Committee: Donald McQuarie PhD (Committee Chair); Priscilla Coleman PhD (Committee Member); Halifu Osumare PhD (Committee Member); Awad Ibrahim PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American Studies; Black History; Fine Arts; Mass Media; Motion Pictures; Social Psychology; Social Structure; Sociology