Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Media and Communication

While scholars from a wide range of disciplines have analyzed thematic development, iconography, narrative, characterization, and animation style of Japanese anime, the music of anime programs is largely ignored or trivialized. This dissertation fills the gap in critical intercultural communication and media studies research by examining original anime soundtracks and their roles as narrative devices. Anime is explored as a site of global cultural resistance, while maintaining articulations of gender and cultural ideals in their stories and reflected in the lyrics of their theme songs. Employing critical intercultural communication, critical media studies, Affect Theory, with textual analysis and rhetorical criticism, this dissertation analyzes how music is intrinsic to the narrative and an expression of cultural values in anime. Analysis focuses on Hibike! Euphonium (2015-present) by Tatsuya Ishihara and Naoko Yamada, from the studio of Kyoto Animation, a slice-of-life drama involving the coming-of-age stories of high schoolers in a competitive concert band, and Vivi -Furoraito Aizu Songu- (2021) by Tappei Nagatsuki and Eiji Umehara, produced by Wit Studio, which follows an autonomous Artificial Intelligence (AI) programmed to entertain humans with her voice, and who discovers her humanity through music while trying to save the world from destruction. Each anime illustrates how musical scores, lyrics, and instrumentation are incorporated into narratives of gender, agency, culture, and humanity. The dissertation also analyzes compositional style, structure, instrumentation, and lyrics encoded with hegemonic messages and constructions of gendered, raced, and cultural distinctions. It provides a critical analysis of how music is used as a narrative tool in media and communication studies involving anime and how the rhetorical messages encoded in texts, via lyrics and instrumentation, are forms of intercultural communication of Japanese anime viewed by a Western aud (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Education (EdD), Ohio University, 2022, Educational Administration (Education)

When President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) into law in 2015 it was intended to advance education equity by upholding key protections for America's most marginalized and high-need students. Local school districts, in the wake ESSA responded with local initiatives and policies aimed at addressing inequities in achievement, academic rigor, and allocation of resources. Because suburban school districts continue to employ predominantly White leaders and teachers while Black student populations grow equal to or beyond the White student population, a critical study of how school districts address race and equity is necessary. The purpose of this study was to understand the policy making process including the creation, adoption and implementation of education equity policies adopted by Cleveland Heights-University Heights, and Shaker Heights City School Districts, two suburban school districts in the inner-ring of Cleveland, Ohio where district leaders and the Board of Education have committed to systematically removing barriers to education, achievement, and opportunities for historically marginalized students. Because critical race theory is a useful framework from which to discuss and research the prominence of race and racism in public policy, the researcher analyzed each policy with a critical race theory lens to understand how school districts attempt to address systemic inequities through policy. The policies were compared to one another based on the quadrangulational comparison including sameness (similarity), sameniqueness (similarity, with particularity), uniquesameness (distinction with similarity), and uniqueness (distinction) between each of them. This research is both timely and beneficial to education leaders, teachers and policymakers who value a critical lens to understand the development of equity policy development at the local level of educational governance.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Communication Studies

Digitalization becomes aggressively integrated into the policy agenda of modern nation-states arguably to accelerate their progress and impact democratization. Concurrently, digital surveillance is also growing worldwide. What happens to democracy when nation-states engage in such a paradoxical exercise of digitalization? This dissertation takes a fresh look at this problem in a transnational context and investigates the democratic implications of such digitalization practices. I examine the (un)changing development discourses within digital policy documents (N=41) and news articles (N=3,739) covering digitization in Bangladesh and Norway over 15 years (2003-2017). I specifically investigate the conceptual framing of three overarching elements of ICT4D — communication, technology, and development— using a new theoretical lens communication as critical freedom (CCF) that I propose uniting relevant works of Jurgen Habermas, Michell Foucault, and Amartya Sen. This inquiry explores how digital policy and news media discursively expand or limit democratization. An innovative mixed-method, computational-critical discourse analysis (C-CDA) is proposed and employed in doing the analysis, combining qualitative methods (i.e., critical discourse analysis) with computational techniques (i.e., LDA topic modeling). As the analyses suggest, Bangladesh and Norway advance a technocapital determinist logic of social change, which instrumentalizes “communication,” renders excessive agency to “technology,” and ultimately posits “development” as mere material progress. These nations' digital policy and news reports scrutinized in this study seem to have been shaped mainly by a transnational discourse of neoliberal globalization, making Bangladesh a digital proletariat and Norway a digital bourgeoisie in the spectrum of global development. Moreover, both nations are forging cybersecurity discourse as a new technique of power that legitimizes digital surveillance and control. Hence (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2022, Higher Education (Education)

This qualitative dissertation critically analyzes proposed and enacted state-level, tuition-free college legislative documents. Taking a three-article approach to the research, this study adds to the recent literature of tuition-free programs focusing on program design characteristics and the inequitable outcomes for students. The first article draws on theoretical perspectives of neoliberalism to better understand the ideological spaces from which policymakers craft tuition-free legislation. Paying close attention to the community college sector, the article finds a dual discourse surrounding the utility of free college that binds a tentative coalition of conservative and progressive factions. The second article examines the data and research cited as evidence in tuition-free community college legislation. Drawing on the work of several policy theorists who conceptualize the political use of evidence in policymaking, findings suggest that conservative and progressive policymakers deploy evidence that fits within their broader ideological preferences. Finally, the third article draws on critical policy analysis to examine salient program characteristics and consider how these design decisions might benefit specific student populations or stakeholders at the expense of others.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2017, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies

Depictions of formal education are common in Young Adult literature, but there is little scholarship considering the way that formal education is positioned in the genre. This critical discourse analysis examines the relationship between formal education and adolescent agency in 12 Young Adult novels published between 2012 – 2015 that appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and earned a Kirkus starred review. This analysis answers the following questions: 1) What is the relationship between formal education and adolescent agency in popular, critically acclaimed YA novels? 2) How do authors use language to reveal the relationship between formal education and adolescent agency? With a critical lens, informed by the work of Freire, Bourdieu, and Delpit, and inspired by theories of language, literacy, and rhetoric of Burke, Bakhtin, and Rosenblatt, this study examines the positioning of formal education in the text set as it relates to adolescents developing agency. A content analysis of 12 books was coded for valence, agency positioning, and rhetorical choices of authors. Informed by the results of the content analysis, a cluster analysis of five books was conducted that examined what rhetorical choices by authors clustered around scenes coded positively or negatively as they relate to adolescent agency. Findings indicate that, although most portrayals of formal education in the text set positioned education as oppressive, emancipatory education was also depicted as present; emancipatory education existed on an individual level, but the formal education systems were not set up explicitly to develop adolescent agency. Authors used many devices to position educators in the text set, relying heavily on descriptions of pedagogical methods, physical descriptions, and portrayals of interpersonal relationships and interactions between adolescents and educators. Educators who used authentic assessment, demonstrated care for adolescents, and acted warmly towards (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2014, Educational Leadership

It is visible in academic dialogue, specifically educational research, that there has not been any substantial research published that constructs or examines The Boondocks animated series in a capacity that extends the discourse past stereotypical issues and paradigms that are associated with the inferiority of African American males and the marginalized experiences they encounter. One primary purpose of this study is to offer a counter argument to the negative conversations that surround The Boondocks comic and animated series. Because most arguments about the text stem from the images and language, the conversations surrounding anything positive or hopeful as it pertains to being a Black male, are left out. Furthermore, this media text is currently not perceived as a reference that can be used as a pedagogical tool. In this qualitative critical media analysis, I sought to answer the question: How does the curriculum of The Boondocks represent issues of race, spirituality, and masculinity? Although The Boondocks is typically understood and critiqued as a Black Nationalist text, I intend to look at the animated series through the lens of race, spirituality and Black Masculinity. I specifically examine the text through the theoretical underpinnings of Critical Media Literacy and Critical Race Theory. Methodologically, Critical Media Literacy, Critical Race Theory and Qualitative Media Analysis help to contextualize The Boondocks animated series. I ultimately argue that the animated series can be understood and used as a curriculum text.

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2024, Educational Leadership

Cabrera (2018) contends that higher education institutions, originally not racially inclusive, continue to struggle with this legacy, often upholding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion values performatively rather than substantively. This study explores the pervasive influence of Whiteness in the strategic plans and mission statements of Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) in U.S. higher education, analyzing how these documents reflect and perpetuate racial inequities. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), the qualitative research examines texts from eleven PWIs to address how Whiteness is manifested in the mission statements and strategic plans. Furthermore, this study examines whether the demographic backgrounds of the Strategic Planning Committee members influenced the discourse within the plans or mission statements. The study identifies six discursive strategies: Avoidant, Passive, Symbolic, Performative, Structural, and Transformative Discourse, which range from the deliberate exclusion of systemic racism discussions to comprehensive systemic changes aimed at promoting equity. The research finds that demographic diversity alone does not ensure more inclusive outcomes, emphasizing the complexity of achieving genuine diversity and inclusion within institutional planning. This study offers critical insights for scholars and practitioners in higher education, highlighting how institutional language perpetuates Whiteness and suggesting the need for approaches that go beyond demographic representation.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Media and Communication

Understanding both gender and fandom as performative can help to identify and describe ways in which fans and fandom become gendered, influences of patriarchy on fandom, and how gendered hierarchies form. With an eye toward performativity, this dissertation explores gendering of fans and fandom through social and cultural forces, pressures within fandom, and influences from texts around which fandoms are built. Additionally, the dissertation examines the ways fandom spaces themselves become gendered and sometimes contested. Using theoretical frameworks of Judith Butler's theory of performativity, Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze, and Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital, this dissertation explores the Star Wars fandom as a gendered and contested space through the following research questions: RQ1: How is language used in Star Wars fan communities to uphold and perpetuate patriarchy and its associated phenomena of sexism and misogyny? RQ2: How is language used in Star Wars fan communities to resist patriarchy and its associated phenomena of sexism and misogyny? The dissertation employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) to study textual interactions of Star Wars fans at the Jedi Council Forums. It follows James Paul Gee's methodological approach to CDA, which highlights discourse in the interest of social justice, how sentence-level analysis can reveal writers' use of language, and Gee's seven building tasks for language use: Significance, practices, identities, relationships, politics, connections, and sign systems and knowledge. Because fandom is growing increasingly mainstream, this dissertation foregrounds women's stories and experiences to explain ways in which women audiences interact with and participate in media they consume and argues for future research in a political economy approach to understanding women audience members in creation of media and its subsequent marketing. It highlights an intersectional approach that considers how factors s (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2022, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

As climate change accelerates and social inequity grows, adaptation planning and policy must respond to both problems. Adaptation scholars increasingly call for transformative solutions that not only address problems with the status quo but articulate ethical commitments to justice and equity. City climate action and adaptation plans (CAAPs) have begun to center these commitments, but little is known about how such responses become articulated and change as CAAPs are developed and passed. This dissertation, a critical case study of San Antonio's first CAAP, SA Climate Ready, addresses this gap by focusing on changes to the discourse of climate equity during the planning and drafting phases. Combining critical discourse analysis and rhetorical analysis methodologies, the study examined claims about climate equity and climate action, as well as the value resonances conveyed by these claims. The dataset included transcripts of 45 planning meetings in 2018 and three CAAP drafts published in 2019. Findings suggest that climate equity discourse was backgrounded, and economic arguments for climate action foregrounded, to appeal to decision-makers' values and priorities. Identifying four rhetorical constraints contributing to these changes and four recommendations for mitigating these constraints, this study has implications for transformative climate planning and policymaking in other contexts.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2020, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore how preservice teachers in special education talk and write about success, failure, and what it means to do well academically. The findings suggest that the seven preservice teacher participants attempted to integrate their understandings about racial awareness, culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 2014) and funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992) into their written course assignments addressing student success. However, these attempts are often overpowered by overarching prioritization of individual efforts and individual achievements. Additionally, attempts to address social and cultural factors of success are less evident in participant interviews conducted one year after completing a university course addressing racial and cultural awareness. Participants largely approach success from a psychological conceptual framework focused on individual performance. Some participants demonstrate ideas about academic success that resist prevailing expectations of school and society. The sociocultural conceptual framework for this dissertation study is situated around how “normal” educational arrangements privilege the family and community practices of some groups over others. Using thematic analysis, discourse analysis, and critical discourse analysis of interviews and writings of preservice teachers in special education, this research addresses how the participants' language shows resistance to, alignment with, or integration of the widely-accepted cultural models of success and failure in schools. In addition, this study investigates if and how participants discuss success and failure in ways that are not taken up in the official practices and policies of schooling.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Social Work

Older adults have been largely excluded from practice, research, policies and education on sexual violence (SV) prevention. Thus, guided by a Critical Feminist Gerontological Framework, integrated within the Social Ecological Model, the central aim of this dissertation is to offer an in-depth understanding of perceptions of SV, chiefly in later life, and how age, gender, SV experience, or work with elders or SV victims may impact perceptions, barriers and solutions to prevention. This three-manuscript dissertation begins with an introductory chapter on SV in later life, followed by a systematic scoping review and thematic analysis, or thematic synthesis, of research on perceptions SV in later life, barriers to prevention and how they can be addressed. Results from the scoping review informed the second phase of this mixed methods dissertation study on perceptions of SV in later life, comprised of a factorial vignette survey gathered through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTURK), where participants were randomized to one of five vignettes, involving the five kinds of SV identified in later life research, where the age of the victim was randomized to 21, 51 or 81 years. After reading the vignettes, participants were asked 20 Likert-scale and categorical questions, on perceived seriousness, culpability, reportability and knowledge of SV, examined in a regression analysis, and 27 open text questions, on knowledge and perceptions of SV, including in later life, explored using a qualitative thematic analysis. Seven overarching themes were identified in the thematic synthesis, of 18 scholarly articles, regarding (a) needs for knowledge and awareness, (b) research, (c) policy development, (d) influences of agism and sexism, (e) SV being a taboo involving limited support, (f) sociocultural differences, and (g) confusion about the nature of SV as well as how it is defined. Further, 567 survey responses were analyzed to assess how age, gender, work industry and victimiz (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

This study analyzed the discourses prevalent in two landmark, federally commissioned reports that sought to define the purposes of higher education. Taking a humanities-oriented lens and drawing on critical social theories, the poststructural critical discourse method, “What's the Problem Represented to Be” (WPR) guided analysis of access and educational opportunity in higher education in the reports. In the Truman Report, the discourse of a limited democracy discursively restricted full access and educational opportunity. In the Spellings Report, the discourses of the market and disadvantage led to a fuller notion of access and educational opportunity tied specifically to neoliberal aims. The analysis of discourses, silences, and effects uncovered that problematizations discursively produced the `capable' graduate in service to protecting democracy in the Truman Report and the `aspirant' graduate in service to market needs in the Spellings Report. I offer a conceptual recommendation considering the capabilities theory grounded in equity as an alternative. Whereas both Reports led to the tension that democratic and market aims are an `either/or' problem for access and educational opportunity, I contend that through the conceptual recommendation of capabilities grounded in equity, a `both/and' framing of access and educational opportunity problems could disrupt the stalled polarization of the aims. This alternative conceptual recommendation could generate policies and practices that promote equitable access and educational opportunity in higher education.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2019, Mass Communication (Communication)

Democracy allows a plural media landscape where different types of media perform vital functions. Over the years, the public trust towards mainstream media has been eroding, limiting their ability to fulfill democratic functions within American society. Meanwhile, the Internet has led to the proliferation of alternative media outlets on digital space. These platforms allow new outreach and mobilizing opportunities to the once peripheral alternative media. So far, the literature about alternative media have been heavily focused on left-wing alternative media outlets, while the research on alternative right-wing media has remained scarce and fragmented. Only a few studies have applied a comparative analysis approach to study these outlets. Moreover, research that examines different aspects of alternative media such as content and audience reception is rarer. This study aims to demonstrate the heterogeneity of alternative media by highlighting their history and functions within American democracy. The second goal of the study is to assess the potential of such platforms to foster political participation. This research project aims to answer the following questions: What are the roles of alternative media in American democracy? What are the ways in which right-wing and left-wing alternative media foster political participation? How do they differ or resemble? To answer these questions, I adopted a two-pronged qualitative methodology. One focuses on audience reception. The other involves a critical analysis of their content. I conducted six focus groups with 24 students. The goal of this part of the study was to understand audience perceptions and experience with alternative media. I was also interested how the alternative content informs their decisions regarding political participation. In addition to the semi-structured questions, the participants read sample articles and listened to podcast segments from the right-wing media outlet, the Daily Wire and The Ben (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing​, University of Findlay, 2019, English

Findlay, Ohio's nineteenth-century newspapers published crime reports, legislative actions, and opinion pieces about prostitution within the city. Victorian ideology was inherently rigid and imbalanced between men and women, which is why nonconforming sexual activity, specifically sex for sale, represents a rhetorically significant phenomenon. When considering Findlay's historical and contemporary reputation as a politically conservative and traditional family-focused municipality, the newspaper articles show that some residents resisted gendered behavioral standards that city leaders sought to uphold during its most socioeconomically formative years. This thesis critically looks at previously unstudied, male-authored Victorian prostitution articles to determine how journalists ideologically situated and represented the female-centric trade within the community. The project also identifies new information that reflects the women's rhetorical presence. This paper argues that, despite the phallocentric nature of the newspaper articles, prostitutes' voices can still be “heard” and recognized for their rhetorical contributions, thereby encouraging historical revisioning.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, EDU Teaching and Learning

This three-fold dissertation examines the semiotic and textual ways that childrens literature is mediated by fifth-grade student conceptualizations of normal childhoods. Through a nested case study, I examined the discourses of a small group of fifth-grade girls, narrowed to the specific interactions of three focal students who have a personal connection to disability, to answer the following question: How does critical literacy mediate the reception of texts/covers that include characters with disabilities? Critical literacy theory provided a platform for conversations with students about the representation of childhood on the covers of books and in the books themselves. Students were encouraged to critique texts and participate in redesigning them in favor of a more accurate depiction of disability. Across the course of a year, I collected information about student interactions with the literature using ethnographic methods through audio/video recordings, semi-structured interviews, field notes and artifact collection (i.e. drawings and writings in student sketchbooks). Using discourse analysis, I analyzed this data to uncover the indexical methods that students utilized to index normal childhoods in relation to their discussions of middle grade novels. These findings were partnered with a content analysis and visual social semiotic/visual rhetoric analysis of book covers of the inclusion of disability in three middle grade novels (Rules, Waiting for Normal, and Short) read by the girls across the course of the year-long study. I found that the book covers consistently portray either a normal childhood or an overemphasized abnormal representation that both hide the reality of disability. In conversation with students, images were often rejected in favor of personal understandings of the disability. They did this by redesigning the covers to use semiotic resources that they connected to personally. Additionally, these students used their own experiences to aid in t (open full item for complete abstract)

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2016, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

Negative stereotypes about people with chronic pain pose a barrier in the delivery of care; contribute to worsening symptoms of physical and psychological distress; and play a role in policy decisions that adversely affect patients and providers. Pain-care seekers may be accused of malingering, laziness, mental aberration, attention seeking, and drug seeking. The propagation of stigmatizing attitudes was explored in this Critical Discourse Analysis of online-reader-comments responding to a series of pain-care policy articles published by a large metropolitan newspaper. Results suggest that framing pain patients as legitimate and deserving can inadvertently reproduce the inequities advocates seek to redress. Ascriptions of deservingness were associated with the locus of choice and agency. Assignments of blameworthiness were used to distinguish the legitimate pain patient from the illegitimate care seeker. Motivation for seeking pain care, as much as the effects of opioids, provided crucial determinants in evaluating legitimacy claims and blame ascriptions. Evaluations of deservingness were predicated on the valence of social regard. Compassion, empathy, respect and believability were rewards of positive social regard. The subjects of addiction and drug abuse were maligned to the detriment of people with pain and people with opioid addiction alike. The disease-entity model of chronic pain was associated with psychiatric discourses of mental illness through a narratives inaccurate reality perception. Loss of independence, rationality, and respectability were semantically linked to negative stereotypes of pain patients, drug addicts, and mentally ill groups. Medical discourses drawing on empirical materialist traditions assert taken-for-granted population categories (e.g. chronic noncancer pain patient) with little acknowledgment of confounding variables, lack of evidence, or their social impact. For the benefit of people seeking care, there is a critical need for moral (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2015, Educational Studies

American institutions of higher education are increasingly utilizing internationalization as a technology of competition. One of the most prominent techniques of internationalization is the promotion of study abroad program participation amongst undergraduate students. On the other hand, students are increasingly demanding opportunities for international education as they seek to make themselves more competitive in the job market. This study uses Foucauldian discourse theory and the concept of governmentality to analyze how the growing importance of study abroad is illustrative of the larger trends of neoliberalism and neocolonial mentalities within U.S. higher education and dominant society. The findings of this study indicate that while the more nefarious aspects of governmentality are in play in study abroad, there are also opportunities for transformative international and cross-cultural learning if particular care is put into program design and content.

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2014, Journalism (Communication)

This content analysis of ABC Network Nightly News stories from 1968 through 2012 of the Christmas holiday shopping season documents specific social, cultural, and economic indicators. A critical studies approach to this research allows the examination of the social ecology where journalistic norms, news sources, business imperatives and cultural phenomena converge. Overall, the results show a 300 percent increase in the number of Christmas-related stories that aired during the first year and the final year of the study. This work contributes to the critical taxonomy of television journalism's relationship with America's commercial culture.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2014, English

This dissertation analyzes contemporary high school rhetorics and institutional discourse, with specific focus on attendance, discipline, and dress code policies. The analysis is employed through an embodiment reading of high school handbooks and high school buildings. A theoretical lens comprised of the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, and Sara Ahmed is utilized throughout the dissertation, and the primary methods of analysis are Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and primary metaphor analysis. The dissertation suggests that a more thoughtful and informed approach to the development of educational discourse may have the power to radically change (for the better) the way we educate high school students. The core problem addressed is the existence of a rhetorical mismatch between author and audience; current educational discourse/rhetoric fails to connect with its target audience (high school students) on many counts and perhaps in some ways actively alienates them. The appropriate intervention must examine and interrogate that discourse/rhetoric and ultimately suggest alternative modes, tone, and content that might be more effective and productive in engaging the desired audience.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2013, Journalism (Communication)

This study builds on research that has documented the persistence of negative stereotypes of Arabs and the Arab world in the U.S. media during more than a century. The specific focus is Time magazine's portrayal of Arabs and their societies between 2001 and 2011, a period that includes the September 11, 2001, attacks; the ensuing U.S.-led "war on terror" and the mass "Arab Spring" uprisings that spread across the Arab world beginning in late 2010. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study explores whether and to what extent Time's coverage employs what Said (1978) called Orientalism, a powerful binary between the West and the Orient characterized by a consistent portrayal of the West as superior--rational, ordered, cultured--and the Orient as its opposite--irrational, chaotic, depraved. A quantitative content analysis of 271 Time feature stories and photographs revealed that Time's coverage focused predominately on conflict, violence, and dysfunction. Nations that received the most frequent coverage were those where the United States was involved militarily, such as Iraq, as well as those that receive the most U.S. foreign aid or are strategically important to U.S. interests. These findings coalesce with the study's qualitative portion, a critical discourse analysis of approximately 20 percent of the data set that employs metaphor and framing theory. This thread of the study reveals an overarching Orientalist binary where Arabs are portrayed either as "atavistic"; or "modern." As "atavistic," they are backward and irrationally violent, possessing corrupt and failed leaders and terrified, preyed-upon women; as "modern," they strive to look, dress, act, and think like Westerners. Arab moderns oftentimes apologize for their societies'; atavistic ways. Media scholars have noted an apparent shift in coverage of Arabs after the events of September 11, with more favorable or complex portrayals found in journalism, television, and film. However, this study revealed no such (open full item for complete abstract)