Browsing by Author "Thrift, Samantha C."
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- ItemOpen AccessIn the Blacklight of Media: An Analysis of Black Celebrity Anti-Racist Activism(2020-07-08) Moghtader, Shabnam; Keller, Jessalynn; Thrift, Samantha C.; Shepherd, TamaraThis thesis examines black celebrity anti-racist activism as a significant part of contemporary popular culture. Using Beyoncé’s 2016 Superbowl 50 halftime show and NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s 2016 “Take a Knee” protest as case studies, I employ discursive textual analysis to thematically unpack how these celebrities and their political activism is articulated and debated within mainstream news media. My analysis reveals multiple competing discourses that situate Beyoncé and Kaepernick as both inspiring political leaders and dangerous, militant figures. Based on this analysis, I argue that news media coverage of Beyoncé and Kaepernick function as a site for negotiation over meanings around historical and contemporary racial politics, pointing to the important work that black celebrity activism does within media cultures today.
- ItemOpen AccessPodcasting in the Christian Peripheries: Constructing Community in The Liturgists, a Post-Evangelical Podcast(2020-08) Johnson, Emily Catherine; Thrift, Samantha C.; Rudd, Annie; Guglietti, Maria VictoriaThis thesis studies how The Liturgists Podcast, as a community located at the intersection of new media and religion, harnesses the auditory, technical, and creative affordances of podcasting to construct an online public with warm appeal to the progressive proclivities and cultural frameworks of listeners navigating the tenets of their fundamentalist Christian faith traditions. This analysis shows that TLP fosters a sense of progressive imagined communion through its use of production decisions and discursive constructions. First, TLP draws on podcasting’s production affordances to fashion a listening experience that reproduces and occasionally adapts some of the evangelical theological and narrative traditions, frameworks, and practices familiar to its listeners, invoking the common progressive affective and nostalgic sensibilities of a physically dispersed public. Second, the hosts draw on a series of progressive religious, political, and social discourses that they position in contrast to those of the American evangelical mainstream. By privately nurturing intimate connections between individuals with similar preoccupations, then employing discourses to contest the ideologies and practices of mainstream religious systems, TLP operates according to Fraser’s (1990) notion of a counterpublic (p. 68). However, rather than distancing itself from the Christian tradition altogether, TLP constructs its progressive counterpublic primarily through the framework of a return to a new, enlightened Christianity. This novel reimagining calls alienated listeners back with compassion and acceptance to the faith traditions that betrayed them, establishing their place in a longer history of mediated listening centred around hope in the imagined communion offered through the soundwaves of technology (Schultze, 1987, p. 258).
- ItemOpen AccessPolice Brutality in Canada: A Framing Analysis(2023-04-27) Puplampu, Adiki; Thrift, Samantha C.; Modgill, Arti; Chan, JuliaThis thesis examines the framing of police brutality in Canadian news media within the context of the social moment created by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The BLM movement has been integral in the mainstreaming of police brutality discourse and, in partnership with increasingly publicized incidents of police brutality, has served as a catalyst for discourse reignition around the issue. Within the context of social movements and cultural transformations, news media is an essential artifact to examine social problem construction and discourse shifts. But discussions of and literature examining media representation and police brutality focus primarily on the American context. By examining news articles from mainstream Canadian outlets with an orientation toward the Canadian cultural context, this research aims to fill a Canadian content gap in the literature. The analysis relies on framing as both theory and method in conjunction with critical race theory (CRT) to examine news produced during two critical junctures in the history of the BLM movement: 2013, when the movement began, and 2020, when it experienced a global resurgence. My examination finds clear problematization of police brutality in both time frames but with a stronger emphasis on race in the 2020 articles, which enhances the problem identification. In addition to theorizing cultural and journalistic barriers to the integration of racial discourse in the 2013 content, I argue that our current social climate supports more effective problematization of police brutality in Canadian news media but that even recent 2020 coverage fails to provide solutions or examine the nuances of modern police brutality beyond its often racial character.
- ItemOpen AccessPolitical Memes in Canada: Participation and Justin Trudeau(2019-04-29) Riabko, Cassandra; Rudd, Annie; Keller, Jessalynn; Thrift, Samantha C.; Hogan, MélAn image macro meme is a visual expression or representation of culture that is used prominently in modern communication and is rapidly shared from person to person. Generally, as the meme is shared the meaning is altered, creating a varying message, different from the original image and its originating context. Communication scholars have studied this form of visual communication in general. Within online communities, memes featuring political figures function as means of socialization, persuasion, critique, and satire and can often reflect alt-right activism. This thesis examines how memes featuring Justin Trudeau have emerged as powerful means of alt-right activism. Using qualitative methods of analysis, this research project is conducted using a multimethod approach, combining discursive analysis and formal analysis to critically analyze prominent memes of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
- ItemOpen AccessSurviving independent women: feminist appropriations in the cultural production of destiny's child(2002) Thrift, Samantha C.; Rusted, Brian