Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2021, Theatre

White American Theatre has a long history of practicing exclusion. In the summer of 2020, a new collective named We See You White American Theatre formed to create the “BIPOC List of Demands for White American Theatre” and to push for more equitable practice in the American theatre industry. Their 31-page initiative calls for widespread reform in the American theatre community including codified cultural competency, BIPOC recruitment and retention both onstage and off, and greater transparency in funding and hiring. This thesis studies the practice of what I call inward- facing theatre activism— that is, theatre activism that critiques and redresses issues within the industry itself, rather than use theatre as a medium for other modes of social or political activism. I employ a mixed methodology including historical analysis, digital and traditional ethnography, and qualitative interviews, framing my research through the context of political scientist Cathy Cohen's theory of marginalization. Using Cohen's framework, I investigate inward-facing theatre activism as it is situated along a continuum of theatre activism, as it resonates throughout community-specific theatre organizing, and— using We See You White American Theatre as a case study— as it exists within and attempts to disrupt the dialectical relationship between marginalization and resistance in the American theatre. My thesis breaks ground in the study of inward- facing theatre activism in three ways: first, by providing a foundational analysis of marginalization and resistance that will benefit future scholars seeking to study integrative and secondary marginalization processes and the American theatre industry as a microcosm of American politics; second, by connecting Cohen's framework to the study of activism in the American theatre industry to explore how current and future scholars and activists alike might utilize this framework to achieve industrial equity; and third, by developing nascent scholarsh (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ana Puga (Advisor); Nadine George-Graves (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Political Science; Theater Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, English

This dissertation explores the contrast between the Athenian and metic rhetorical paradigms through the lens of the hacker. Arguing the dominant Athenian rhetorical paradigm is marked by public, persuasive, often-disembodied rhetorics in pursuit of epistemic truths, I argue the metic paradigm focuses on stealthy, deceptive, embodied rhetoric in pursuit of advantages over adversaries. Noting how today's digital rhetorical situation is largely adversarial, this dissertation points to the hacker as an exemplar of metic rhetorics. Through three case studies, each focusing on a different type of computer hack, this dissertation explores how the hacker subjectivity is produced and describes its beneficial lines of flight, discusses the interplay of metaphor and physicality in digital activism and cyberwar, and shows how metic rhetorical practices can be leveraged to create a safer and more just world and thus improve personal and organizational cybersecurity.

Committee: John Jones (Committee Chair); Ben McCorkle (Committee Member); Jonathan Buehl (Committee Member) Subjects: Information Technology; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Communication

Millions of people use social media platforms to curate digital representations of themselves through the creation of profiles and sharing images and narratives about their daily lives. Social media are also increasingly used to amplify offline prosocial causes that grow and evolve into prosocial movements. Although social media platforms have been used to bring people together in solidarity and push for change in society through causes such as #MeToo, #BoPo, and #BLM (Jackson et al., 2020), some scholars contend that social media increasingly provide venues for users to engage in performative allyship (Wellman, 2022) that prioritizes the personal interests of users rather than the social causes they purport to advance. The vast number of sources—with different agendas and messaging strategies—who exist on social media platforms can create complexities related to promoting prosocial causes authentically and effectively. The current study examines how differences in two perceived affordances—persistence and visibility—affect how women viewers evaluate the authenticity of men who post allyship messages on Instagram. Additionally, I examine how viewer perceptions of comment deletion and comment restriction impact source evaluations. Results indicate that the more women viewers found posts to be persistent, the more they rated the men who posted as authentic allies, as having prosocial reasons for posting, and as having less self-interested reasons for posting. Greater perceived visibility of posts had a similar impact on these outcome variables. Moreover, comment deletion and restriction were found to partially affect how viewers evaluated the authenticity and motives of sources, providing additional support to warranting theory (DeAndrea, 2014; Walther & Parks, 2002). Implications for promoting prosocial messaging and digital allyship online are discussed.

Committee: David DeAndrea (Advisor); Joseph Bayer (Committee Member); Teresa Lynch (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Media and Communication

The conceptualization of feminism and rise of feminist individuals and groups in Ghana have evolved within the Fourth Republic era (from 1992 to the present), leading to growing misunderstanding about the nature, role, and scope of the feminist activism in Ghana. This thesis examines how individuals who uphold feminist thought and practice, and gender equity nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Ghana use social media to advocate for women's and children's health and well-being, women's participation in politics and media, and elimination of crises, including rape culture and gender-based violence (GBV). The thesis analyzes how Ghanaian feminists and gender equity NGOs contribute to principles of UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5): Gender Equality and ascertains how social media is used for gender equity advocacy efforts. In-depth interviews with self-identified Ghanaian feminists and leaders of gender equity NGOs were conducted. Interview data was analyzed using grounded theory. The result of Research Question (RQ1), on how Ghanaian feminist activism has evolved, indicates growing acceptance of feminism during the latter half of the current Republic era. Findings for RQ2, on how feminist and gender equity NGOs use digital platforms to advocate for Ghanaian women and children, indicate digital platforms are used for training women on leadership and entrepreneurship, defending themselves and their children against GBV, and amplifying women's and children's interests. Findings for RQ3, on how Ghanaian feminists and NGOs contribute to UN SDG 5, reveal productive efforts to educate on gender equity, collaborate with women celebrities to take leadership roles on gender equality to broader publics, and advocate for women's representation in Ghanaian institutions. Finally, RQ4, on roles Ghanaian social media play in amplifying Ghanaian feminists, digital platforms are vital to enable collaboration, support change in public policies negatively affecting women, an (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lara Lengel Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Ellen Gorsevski Ph.D. (Committee Member); Radhika Gajjala Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African Studies; Black Studies; Communication; Gender; Gender Studies; Law; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Technology; Web Studies; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, Media and Communication

In 2006, American activist Tarana Burke started the me too movement that helped survivors of sexual assault by telling them that there were other survivors too, and they were not alone. In 2017, Alyssa Milano used the same phrase as a hashtag and called for women to share their experiences of harassment using #metoo, or just use the hashtag to show they have been through something similar. This movement eventually brought about the conviction of former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. However, echoes of this movement reached far and wide, beyond the United States of America. Survivors of assault started using social media to call out what they had been through. This study examines the voice of women on the digital media platforms and how their calling out of sexual harassers on these platforms negotiates with the discourse of shame and guilt surrounding sexual assault. Shame is a prominent emotion associated with sexual assault that finds its space within the larger narrative of silencing women. Survivors often do not report assault for fear of being shamed. In news media, shame is reinforced by way of stock images that show a woman hiding her face or crying for help that accompany stories of sexual assault. Shame could force survivors to keep their trauma to themselves for years, resulting in other psychological issues. Social media intervenes in this. This study looks at three cases in India between 2017 and 2019 where survivors used social media to speak up about how they had been sexually harassed and/or assaulted. Using textual and discourse analysis, the study found that as opposed to portraying survivors in a pitiful light, social media gives the agency to the survivor to decide how they want to be seen. They are able to bypass passive narratives through first-person reporting. This subversion of shame does not necessarily affect the consequences that the accused will face but it focuses on the survivor's needs. The results of this research sugg (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Radhika Gajjala Dr. (Advisor); Dryw Dworsky Dr. (Other); Sandra Faulkner Dr. (Committee Member); Lisa Hanasono Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Mass Communications; Mass Media; Womens Studies

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2019, English

This thesis investigates activist literacy sponsorship through a rhetorical circulation analysis of two public syllabi: the #CharlestonSyllabus and #StandingRockSyllabus started on Twitter. This thesis also analyzes activist literacy sponsorship in the experiences of composition teachers, drawing from two interviews with activist writing instructors. The author finds that public syllabi and activist instructor strategies provide a valuable example of activist literacy sponsorship that should influence Composition and Rhetoric curriculum design. Based on analysis of activist instructor's experiences, the author calls for more complex and contextual definitions of activism and additional institutional and department support for activist instructor's work.

Committee: Jason Palmeri (Committee Chair); Heidi McKee (Committee Member); Michele Simmons (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2018, Arts and Sciences: Communication

Internet scholars studying activism coordinated online have not focused on how a social movement may be impacted by the social networking site, instead platforms are often regarded as one analogous entity. Using content analysis this thesis examines seven weeks of posts from the social media accounts of the Women's March to understand the differences in form, interaction, function, and discussion. It aims to bridge the current gap in digital activism literature, as well as aid future social activists. The findings of this study reveal the importance of understanding the platforms themselves, and how community is built differently on each site. The differences found in terms of interaction, form, and function indicate that Facebook is better suited for coordinating online activism because of its ability to build a more interconnected community.

Committee: Eric Jenkins Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Stephen Depoe Ph.D. (Committee Member); Tony Liao Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, English

This dissertation intervenes in antiracist scholarship's recent trend of acknowledging/openly critiquing whiteness as primary means to dismantle white supremacy in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy (Ratcliffe, Inoue). I use intersectional Black Feminist thought (Lorde, Cohen), buttressed by Black Studies (DuBois, Godwin-Woodson, Weheliye) and Afrocentric philosophy (Asante, Mazama), to interrupt that trend by examining marginalized antiracist agency, through analysis of meanings of blackness in the US vis-a-vis institutional power. In centering blackness, I apply “a critical method” that “presents a positive rather than a reactionary posture” (Asante) in mobilizing generative approaches to destabilizing institutional whiteness, as opposed to reparative attempts that often paradoxically center whiteness. At the crux of this project is an attempt to establish a lens for reading rhetorical ecologies of race—race relations interrelated through space, culture, and context. I use that lens to undertake a case study of a large Midwestern historically white institution, Midwestern State University, during a defined cultural moment (post-Ferguson). “Black or Right” foregrounds its Black feminist rhetorical analysis with an eye toward a fracturing multiplicity through a relational methodology, building from Sara Ahmed's work in On Being Included. In doing so, I expand Ahmed's focus on diversity practitioners by emphasizing different positions/locations within the historically white educational institution under scrutiny while adopting differing vantage points or roles from which I analyze material: through a concentration on graduate student positionality (autoethnographist) in Chapter 2; in undergraduate student work in my antiracist composition classroom (critical pedagogue) in the following chapter; via the cultural context of historical, populist, and pedagogic meanings of #BlackLivesMatter (cultural rhetorician) in the fourth chapter; and within the praxis of policy (a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Wendy Hesford (Committee Chair); Beverly Moss (Committee Member); Margaret Price (Committee Member) Subjects: Black Studies; Composition; Literacy; Rhetoric

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2017, Psychology/Clinical

The present study explored the nature of social justice discussions on the social networking site Tumblr using publicly available data from Tumblr posts generated between March 16, 2016 and March 30, 2016. Posts were self-identified by users with at least one of five common hashtags related to social justice identified in a pilot study on Tumblr. These hashtags were #Black Lives Matter, #Feminism, #Racism, #Social Justice, and #SJW, an abbreviation for “social justice warrior” a phrase used to label individuals who engage in social justice discussions online. Findings indicated that posts about social justice are common on Tumblr with 15,160 public posts created by 8,794 users across the two weeks. However, not all posts reflect a positive attitude toward social justice with 8.6% of posts expressing disagreement or even hostility toward movements promoting equality. Data from the present study were compared to data collected in the pilot study to describe consistency and differences in results using the same methodology at two different time points for two different lengths of time. Implications of study findings for clinical and research purposes are discussed.

Committee: Catherine Stein Ph.D. (Advisor); Dale Klopfer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Carolyn Tompsett Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2017, Communication Studies (Communication)

People with disabilities have long been under-represented and misrepresented in mainstream media, and have sought strategies to contest discourses of difference that frame disability as a pitiable tragedy, a burden, or a source of inspiration used to make non-disabled people feel better about their own lives. With the advent of the internet and the increasingly participatory character of the media landscape, people with disabilities are now more able to generate and circulate a counter-narrative--one which draws on the social model of disability to highlight the ways in which stigmatizing and oppressive responses to different bodies create and perpetuate marginalization. However, the disability community is far from monolithic. In addition, the line between "chronic illness" and "disability" remains blurry. Thus, as individuals engage in self-advocacy and collective/connective action by publicizing their stories, they draw from varied discourses of difference that preserve or resist medicalization. Similarly, advocates organize to pursue potentially conflicting goals. The resulting tensions of representation and organization are particularly apparent in the case of The Mighty, a for-profit media company that publishes stories submitted by people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, and mental health conditions. This site has become an increasingly popular resource for some members of the disability community. At the same time, it has also become a site of contention and has received criticism from disability activists who protested its publishing practices via the hashtag initiative, #crippingthemighty. For this dissertation project, The Mighty served as a context to explore how public performances of self-advocacy in digital spaces link to connective/collective action. Taking a constructivist approach to grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006), I analyzed interviews with Mighty staff members (14 participants), Mighty contributors (29 participants), and #crippingt (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Austin Babrow PhD (Advisor); Brittany Peterson PhD (Committee Member); JW Smith PhD (Committee Member); Stephanie Tikkanen PhD (Committee Member); Risa Whitson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2017, English-Composition

Students entering our freshman composition classrooms use digital writing every day, whether on social media, blogging, or various other digital areas. Students also have fast access to news, media, and other information. These two interactions, writing and reading, in today's digital realm are often drenched in social propaganda and debates. In Ira Shor's sub-section titled “Academic Problem-Posing: Media Studies and a Critical Literature Class” within his work Empowering Education, he writes that students “are starved for meaningful contexts, for intellectual and emotional pleasure in the life of the mind, and for holistic learning that feeds their understanding. Schooling teaches many students that education is a pointless ritual wrapped in meaningless words” (83). Shor's words still ring true today, especially in classrooms where student's 21st century interactions with technology are disused for traditional composition classrooms with lectures and no digital components from the social media world in which they actively participate. When students are unable to address propaganda and digital identities in the classroom when they see it their everyday lives, how do they learn to critically analyze these messages? With Critical pedagogy's teachings and digital culture commodities, teachers can help prepare students for decoding and deconstructing digital propaganda with the hopes of fostering participation and push-back through social media. By using critical pedagogy's core teachings and digital instruction, teachers can create a classroom where students can recognize and debunk propaganda used in online media while also introducing them to the ways that digital mediums can aid in resistance. Helping students to decode online media while understanding its power can foster student's critical thinking in a digital world. The primary goal of this thesis is to research and discover the importance of rhetoric and propaganda in writing on social media and how the dissec (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William Thelin (Advisor); Amanda Booher (Other); Joseph Ceccio (Other) Subjects: Composition

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2016, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

"Fat Cyborgs: Body Positive Activism, Shifting Rhetorics and Identity Politics in the Fatosphere" is a project that illuminates how activist groups intersect technology with their activism. I observe and investigate the ways that Fat Acceptance (FA) and Health at Every Size (HAES) supporters and allies build and sustain an activist community online. I do this in order to understand how fat activists negotiate identity and the body online, a space often considered sans corpus. This project involves examining and extrapolating activists' literate and rhetorical practices for creating and sharing knowledge. I am most interested in understanding the ways in which fat activists use the Fatosphere to develop alternatives to oppressive and discriminatory discourses. I explore the issues that are raised by the FA movement, particularly in how FA and HAES takes shape in a subversive way in an online environment. In doing so, I develop a critical skill-set to talk about and negotiate the body and its relationship with technology, and in particular, the digital, personal/political heterotopias and affect more positive discourse.

Committee: Kristine Blair (Advisor); Sue Carter-Wood (Committee Co-Chair); Lee Nickoson (Committee Member); Michael Arrigo (Other) Subjects: Rhetoric; Social Research; Technology

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2016, American Culture Studies

The contemporary debate over safe space has inspired a multitude of news editorials, blog posts, and passionate commentary, presented along a hard binary of proponents and opponents. Defenders of safe space strategies, including trigger warnings and call-outs contend that these practices benefit a larger social justice project, while opponents insist they reiterate past political correctness movements and constitute censorship. This project strives to situate the contemporary safe space debate within a broader historical and critical context through a textual analysis of the defenses and critiques published between 2011 and 2016. It considers three key themes that recur in that discourse, namely the belief that safe space takes identity politics to an extreme, the belief that safe space strategies create a population of hypersensitive victims, and the belief that calls for safe space constitute a form of violence or policing. Each of these themes is examined in comparison with another safety project, (e.g. women's-only spaces, domestic violence shelters, and public safety or policing). This method complicates the deterministic view of the contemporary safe space movement as a result of the rise in social media. It also challenges the binary that links safe space with progressive politics and opposition to safe space with conservatism. Ultimately, it allows for insights gleaned from the examination of previous safety projects to inform recommendations for effectively pursuing safety as a social justice aim.

Committee: Becca Cragin Ph.D. (Advisor); Radhika Gajjala Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Gender Studies; Glbt Studies; Web Studies; Womens Studies

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2014, English

This thesis describes a study that investigates the assumptions, rhetorical strategies, and genre characteristics demonstrated by online petitions and two websites that host them—We the People and MoveOn Petitions. Chapter One consists of a literature review of democratic and public sphere theories, as well as a description of the two websites of interest. Chapter Two investigates the impact of digital circulation on the function and form of the genre. Chapter Three describes a visual analysis of the home pages and creation templates of each site, while Chapter Four contains a critical discourse analysis of a sample of petitions. The project concludes with a chapter that outlines the findings of the study, supplemented by a discussion of the affordances and constraints of the genre. I argue that online petitions are complex digital texts that reveal varied and often complicated attitudes towards democracy, and that online petitions are their own genre due to their circulation patterns. Ultimately, this project provides insight on a form of digital public writing valuable in a variety of contexts, including first-year composition classrooms.

Committee: Michele Simmons (Committee Chair); Jason Palmeri (Committee Member); James Porter (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2009, English

This thesis describes a person-based research study that investigates the literacy practices of students who self-identify as activists at Miami University. Research methods are drawn from activist methodology and empathetic interviewing techniques. This study presents and analyzes data from ten interviews with student activists, focusing especially on three in-depth case studies of specific student activists and the texts they have created for their work. In particular, this study addresses the following questions: How and to what extent do student activists understand and practice rhetorical persuasion? How do sponsors, material conditions, and contexts support the activist literacies of participants? How do student activists conceptualize and employ digital technologies and multiple modalities in their work? What advice can activist students provide for teachers of writing? The project ultimately reveals implications for teachers, especially those interested in public writing and critical pedagogy, as well as for future research.

Committee: Jason Palmeri PhD (Committee Chair); Heidi McKee PhD (Committee Member); John Tassoni PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric