Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Sociology

Beginning around 2020, conservative politicians and media outlets have launched an aggressive campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives via the symbolic vilification of critical race theory. Several scholars have observed that this crusade has largely taken the form of a conservative media-driven disinformation campaign that seeks to obscure the true intent and scope of critical race theory's influence on American society for political gains. Drawing upon critical race literature, framing theory, and various scholarship pertaining to the relationship between media and cultural hegemony, this project sought to qualitatively interrogate the frames used to discuss critical race theory within live Fox News broadcastings. Upon analysis of 50 randomly selected live Fox News transcripts, I found that Fox News commentators regularly invoked 6 common frames in discourses surrounding critical race theory. Therein, critical race theory was often projected to be: 1.) Divisive, 2.) Governmental Overreach, 3.) Indoctrination, 4.) a Marxist/Communist Agenda, and 5.) as Racist, with 6.) people of color (POC) often being used as legitimizers of these narratives. To conclude, I contemplated the implications of these frames, particularly in regard to what they unveil about mass media's influence over knowledge production and dissemination processes, as well as what they project for future social and racial justice strategies in light of the impending direction of the conservative political agenda.

Committee: Michael Vuolo (Advisor); Vincent Roscigno (Committee Member); Dana Haynie (Committee Member) Subjects: Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Social Research; Sociology

BA, Oberlin College, 2019, Comparative American Studies

This project seeks to interrogate the socio-spatial implications of New York City's contemporary criminal justice machine through mayor Bill de Blasio's ongoing jail reform plan to build new, "borough-based jails." In 2017, following decades of controversy over entrenched violence and horrific abuses on Rikers Island, New York's notorious island penal colony, de Blasio announced a 10-year plan to "to close Rikers Island and replace it with a smaller network of modern jails." While the plan claims to make jails in New York "smaller, safer, and fairer," this project analyzes the plan's strategies, its rhetoric, and its goals to understand the vision of New York City that is being produced and propagated. Rather than a plan to contain, shutter, or dismantle the carceral legacies at work on Rikers Island, this project unpacks how liberal criminal justice reforms in the urban context rely upon exclusionary citizenship, spatialized inequality, and commodification of neighborhoods to take shape. While the plan is in the early stages of implementation with an uncertain future, this research helps to uncover how the carceral state and neoliberal governmentality in contemporary U.S. cities cohere at the street level, working to normalize the capillary expansion of carceral control in the name of urban consumption.

Committee: Gina M. Pérez (Advisor); Charmaine Chua (Committee Member); Annemarie Sammartino (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Geography; Land Use Planning; Urban Planning

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Cleveland State University, 2016, College of Education and Human Services

Men teachers are not present in early childhood classrooms for many reasons, despite recruitment efforts. Many men who do choose to follow this feminized career path find themselves positioned as tokens and often quickly leave for administration. Informed by a three-dimensional narrative inquiry approach this research utilized identity and masculinities paradigms to investigate the experiences of veteran men teaching young children. A series of four interviews was used to explore and describe the individual professional life history of participants. The narratives of Frank, Jerry, and George provide a deeper understanding of how men negotiate identity and construct masculinities over time in early childhood education. Findings suggest a critical mass of men teachers can lead to their acceptance in early childhood education while augmenting the male privilege they receive. Themes emerging from the study offer paths for improving the recruitment and retention of men in early childhood education and continuing the discussion of gender and power in the workplace.

Committee: Dinah Volk Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Anne Galletta Ph.D. (Committee Member); Brian Harper Ph.D. (Committee Member); Karl Wheatley Ph.D. (Committee Member); Megan Hatch Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Early Childhood Education; Gender; Sociology

Bachelor of Science of Journalism (BSJ), Ohio University, 2015, Journalism

This thesis examines the comparative relationship between ESPN and Fox Sports One through the content of their original programming. A laboratory experiment showing participants stimuli from the ESPN program SportsCenter and the Fox Sports One program Fox Sports Live is used to generate statistical evidence that viewer attitudes of the two programs are equivalent. This finding is surrounded with a general analysis of the empirical components of the other original programming broadcast by both networks. The vast economic power of both entities are viewed through both competitive marketing theory and the lens of political economy to situate these findings within the economic sphere they reside in.

Committee: Carson Wagner Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Communication; Experiments

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2015, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

How can we make cities more livable? Los Angeles, in particular, is a notably challenging place to live. For many, it is hard to see Los Angeles—city or county—as anything other than a huge, sprawling, and some would say placeless place. Los Angeles is known by many as the place that tore up more than 1,000 miles of streetcar lines to make way for millions of cars and hundreds of miles of freeways. Because of this, Los Angeles is also known for its poor air quality and jammed freeways. Those who live in Los Angeles know that it can be a very real challenge to get around. But Los Angeles is also a city of possibilities. It is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world. It is mostly flat. It seldom rains. Surprisingly, Los Angeles has an alternative bike culture that has emerged and rapidly matured over the last nineteen years. It has gone from a rowdy and radical culture of bike messengers gathering for night rides to a substantial and growing community of riders, do-it-yourself bike mechanics, and homegrown transportation activists and advocates who have influenced the way bikes and riders are perceived and even how regional transportation policy is developed and implemented. How and why has that come to pass? In answering these questions, this dissertation seeks to describe the recent history of bike culture in Los Angeles through the eyes of its originators and ongoing participants. This is a narrative account of the recent past and the present in Los Angeles, California, in which a collection of bicycle-related phenomena appear to be transforming the land in ways that many might agree constitute a form of revitalization. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at Ohiolink ETDCenter, http://etd.ohiolink.edu and AURA, http://aura.antioch.edu/. An MP4 video introduction by the author accompanies this document.

Committee: Joy Ackerman PhD (Committee Chair); Mitchell Thomashow EdD (Committee Member); Jenny Price PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Climate Change; Ecology; Environmental Studies; Recreation; Sustainability; Urban Planning

DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2014, College-Conservatory of Music: Conducting, Choral Emphasis

The Mass in E-Flat Major by Amy Beach was the first major choral and orchestral work to be premiered in the United States by an American woman composer. Despite a successful premiere in 1892, the piece was never published and has been relegated to obscurity save a small number of performances over the last twenty years. Its performance materials have been housed in the New England Conservatory of Music and exist in manuscript form that are difficult to use in performance. Moreover, they contain corrections that were never recorded in the piano-vocal score that was published in 1890 by Schott Publishing of Boston, MA. This document is a new critical edition which establishes in print the corrections Beach made for the 1892 premiere and corrects errors that are present in the original source material.

Committee: L. Scott D.M.A. (Committee Chair); Jonathan Kregor Ph.D. (Committee Member); Earl Rivers D.M.A. (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2011, Journalism (Communication)

This study compared depictions of chronic pain in newspapers and magazines with blogs by people with chronic pain. Using critical discourse analysis, the study identified and compared frames, definitions of people with chronic pain, symbols and metaphors, and depictions of otherness/unhomelikeness. Marked differences were found among blogs and mainstream print media, with lesser differences between newspapers and magazines. By defining people with chronic pain by their illnesses, downplaying the impact of persistent pain on everyday life, and relating chronic pain to character or mental fortitude, magazines and newspapers contributed to the stigmatization and otherization bloggers described. Mainstream print media authors also portrayed chronic pain as less impactful, less agonizing, and less real than bloggers' descriptions. As such, newspapers and magazines made chronic pain more palatable to readers, but deprived them of the knowledge people with chronic pain glean through the lived experience of illness.

Committee: Bernhard Debatin Ph.D. (Advisor); Michael Sweeney Ph.D. (Committee Member); Joseph Bernt Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Health; Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Social Research

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2010, International Development Studies (International Studies)

The thesis is a case study of the Chinese nationalist movements after the Tibet riots in 2008. It is a qualitative research study. I use critical theory to analyze the stimulus of the movement, the new characteristics of the movement, as well as its impact to the country and international society. My study indicates that narrative bias in China and the West has been the main obstacle for dialogue between China and the West, as well as China and Tibet. Hence, more communicative actions are necessary for conciliation.

Committee: Jie-Li Li (Committee Chair); Takaaki Suzuki (Committee Member); Vibert C. Cambridge (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Mass Media; Political Science; Sociology

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2009, Sociology (Arts and Sciences)

This study seeks to understand the formation of activist collective identities within the temporary biketivist spaces of the Critical Mass cycling event. I collected data through participant observation in Critical Mass rides in Athens, Ohio, Columbus, Ohio, and Minneapolis, Minnesota from June of 2008 through February of 2009 in addition to semi-structured interviews with cyclists. These methods elicited data that speaks to the relationship between police, automobiles, and Critical Mass cyclists. While the Critical Mass and automotive majority exhibit a contentious relationship that solidifies cyclist collective identity around a common opposition, police play a more complex role of enforcer, referee between automobile and cyclist, and fuel to the carnival of transgression. As Critical Mass expresses emergent collective identities within an auto-centric cultural environment, a social, safe, and celebratory space allows for actualization of social movement tactics and goals.

Committee: Stephen Scanlan (Committee Chair); Joseph Deangelis (Committee Member); Bruce Hoffman (Committee Member) Subjects: Sociology

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2011, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

The purpose of this research is to seek narratives of self-censorship from in-depth interviews of 19 participants acquired through a purposive (criterion) sampling protocol. The primary research question driving this study is “What types of sanctions contribute to people choosing to self-censor their strongly held beliefs, values, and opinions.” Previous research conducted on the topic of self-censorship (generally under the rubric of the spiral of silence theory) has been predominantly quantitative and consideration of sanctions influencing self-censorship have been limited to fear of social isolation. I suggest that ostensibly important sanction variables have not been utilized within these existing frameworks. I anticipated that this research, by utilizing a qualitative framework, would reveal other sanctions that operate in the self-censorship decision calculus. I also expected that interviews would portray a broader, more complete picture of how self-censorship operates and the variables that contribute to the construct. Research expectations were partially met as new variables in regard to specific fears of sanctioning were identified. These variables should contribute to self-censorship theory and more specifically, the frequently researched “spiral of silence” theory of mass communication and could be tested in quantitative research to verify their validity. Future research in this vein might consider testing additional sanction variables as part of a quantitative study, continue to refine the definition of self-censorship, develop better strategies to locate and secure additional informants, and continue to utilize qualitative methods to probe further into self-censorship questions.

Committee: Thomas Webler Ph.D. (Committee Chair); K. Heidi Watts Ph.D. (Committee Member); Robert Krueger Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Environmental Studies; Land Use Planning; Mass Communications; Psychology; Social Psychology; Sociology; Urban Planning

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2013, Higher Education (Education)

This research studies the convergence between critical mass, discipline and gender in the academy. Critical mass theory is based on the concept that when a "nonmajority" group reaches a minimal threshold they can generate a sustained and lasting change within an organization. Some literature posits that critical mass is met when there are three or more women in small organizations such as corporate boards, changing board decision-making in terms of processes and outcomes (Kramer, Konrad, & Erkut, 2006). Other research describes critical mass as women representing at least 15% of the group, which results in less "token overload," decreased hypervisibility and invisibility issues, and reduced stereotyping (Kanter, 1977; Etzkowitz, Kemelgor, & Uzzi, 2000; Carrigan, Quinn, & Riskin, 2011). The research merges these two definitions, and assesses the characteristics found in environments with or without a critical mass of tenured female faculty, as well as the impact of critical mass, gender and discipline on job satisfaction for pre-tenure faculty. While women receive doctoral degrees in higher percentages than their male colleagues, they do not ascend the ranks in the same proportions (Touchton, McTighe Musil, & Peltier Campbell, 2008). A critical mass of tenured female faculty has the ability to positively impact the environment for pre-tenure faculty at the departmental level. The study used data from the 2011-12 Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) quantitative and qualitative survey responses. Results indicate that over 75% of those surveyed work in departments where tenured female faculty met the critical mass threshold. The four disciplines included in this study are finance/accounting, management, English and history. Findings indicate that a critical mass of tenured female faculty positively impacted environments for pre-tenure females and males in history, as well as females in management. In management departments without a critic (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Valerie Martin Conley (Committee Chair); Katherine Jellison (Committee Member); Josetta McLaughlin (Committee Member); Taylor-Bianco Amy (Committee Member); Bhat Christine (Committee Member) Subjects: Gender; Higher Education