Open Theses and Dissertations
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Browsing Open Theses and Dissertations by Department "Communication and Culture"
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- ItemOpen AccessA Renewed Challenge for Change: Participatory Media Production for Transformative Change at EMMEDIA Gallery and Production Society(2014-06-10) Becker, Eric Peter; Tepperman, Charles EdwinThis research investigates an important initiative undertaken by Canada’s National Film Board (NFB) during the 1960s and 1970s called The Challenge for Change (CFC). The focus of this initiative was to address social justice issues specific to rural poverty in Canadian communities. A renewed interest and revitalization in the CFC principles including a process oriented, participatory (documentary) media production program focused on local, community-based social, political and environmental justice issues. This research identifies a variety of programs from 2002 to 2012 at EMMEDIA that shared many of the same principles of the CFC. The goal of this research was to evaluate the capacity of EMMEDIA’s media arts model to continue the work CFC started with an expanded goal of transformative change – social, political, and environmental. This research identifies the work EMMEDIA has done in process oriented, participatory media arts production and exhibition to facilitate a model for real transformative change.
- ItemOpen AccessArtistry in Social Science Research(2016-01-06) Dam, Shirley Cassandra; Rusted, Brian; Einsiedel, Edna; McCoy, Liza; Estefan, Andrew; Pink, SarahThis interpretive research study is an inquiry into social science researchers’ aesthetic practices in relation with photographic-based research practices. Specifically, it is an hermeneutic study that probes their experiences of practice careers and trajectories of practitioners in relation to expectations, traditions, and conventions of visual research communities. I explore through my conversations with five visual researchers from diverse social science disciplines the relevancy of aesthetics in evolving photographic research practices guided by philosophical hermeneutics and practice theory. Participants demonstrate that photographic-based research practices are messy, interdisciplinary, and complex because of the shared, entwined histories of photography, disciplinary traditions, and emerging aesthetic practices. The inquiry explores changing practices over time and space, creating a possible trajectory of aesthetic practice in photographic-based research practices. This trajectory is based on participants’ recollections of practice careers and literature about photography’s emergence into multiple histories across disciplines and fields and its ultimate establishment as a legitimate social science approach to data collection, analysis, and dissemination. It probes participants’ expectations, traditions, desires, and values of photographic-based research practices and relationships with aesthetic practices as their visual research careers evolved over time and space. Visual researchers face increasing complexity and challenges in their individual practices because of evolving shared practices. This includes their place(s) within visual research and disciplinary communities, borrowing from other disciplines, challenges to traditional expectations of collective practices, and their own desires to innovate and contribute to visual research methods. Aesthetic practices further complicate both individual and community practices, as aesthetics is still viewed by some practitioners as the domain of the arts and irrelevant to social science while others explore social worlds with aesthetic experience and expressions.
- ItemOpen AccessBeating a Dead Elephant: Rhetorical Appeals of the Romneys’ and Obamas’ 2012 National Convention Speeches(2016-01-08) Jette, Ashley; Smith, Tania; Melnyk, George; Clarke, Michael TavelThis thesis examines the rhetorical strategies used in the speeches of Mitt and Ann Romney, and Barack and Michelle Obama at the 2012 Republican and Democratic National Conventions. It does so in order to gain insight into the communications strategies of each of the major political parties, and project about the future directions of The Republican Party. The method of this study involves a comparative rhetorical analysis of the four speeches mentioned, and examines the rhetorical strategies used in each of these speeches. Similarities and differences were observed between the ways that each speaker appealed to Americans of lower socioeconomic status, female voters, and Christian voters. Additionally, news media and other online sources were used to contextualize each speech, and gauge audience responses to them. This study hypothesizes that in order to continue to contend with the Democratic Party, the Republican Party may need to alter its rhetoric to be more appealing to diverse groups of voters.
- ItemOpen AccessCommunicating Sustainable Food: Connecting scientific information to consumer action(2014-07-03) Godfrey, David Matthew; Feng, Patrick Shiao TsongThis thesis investigates the consumer behaviour impact of communicating environmental impact data. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour and communication techniques from the behaviour change literature, I developed a campaign to communicate the water footprint of entrées at a university dining hall. I collected sales and production data and administered attitude surveys before and after the campaign’s implementation. In addition, I conducted qualitative interviews to explore how individuals interpreted, understood, and used the science-based information communicated. Based on available data, the campaign failed to change food purchase decisions and, over the course of the experiment, students’ attitude scores actually grew less positive toward choosing foods with low water footprints. Interview results suggest that the campaign’s effectiveness was hindered by the overpowering nature of convenience and important food attributes such as flavour, as well as a disconnection between abstract water footprint data and students’ own definitions of environmental sustainability.
- ItemOpen AccessCreative Resistance Tactics in the Work of English-Canadian Screenwriters(2017) McArthur, Kerry; Melnyk, George; Beard, William; Martini, Clement; Mitchell, David; Leblanc, Jean-René; Feldman, SethThis dissertation analyzes how eight successful English-Canadian screenwriters negotiate various systems of filmmaking practice, in particular the criteria for screenwriting structure, character development and closure as imposed by Hollywood normative practice, Canadian film producers and national funding organizations. The writers discuss their tactics for conciliating the interests of funders and producers while honouring their own interpretations of what they consider essential narrative elements in screenplay projects. Analysis of interview transcripts reveals that many of these writers take their inspiration from works of literature and theatre as much as from influential films; further textual analysis of films written by these same screenwriters shows that not one follows the exact dictates of classical Hollywood narrative, although all deploy various elements and permutations of the form for their own purposes. As per French sociologist Michel de Certeau’s position that society’s powerless both consciously and unconsciously adopt stealth tactics to make their way in the world, these screenwriters reveal the many ways they resist overt control of their writing, alternately by neglecting/ignoring rewriting strictures (provided through reader’s reports and/or producer’s notes), by instinctively taking up anomalous narrative structures provided by alternate genres, and/or by adopting new roles in the process via which they may better exert control over the filmmaking project. Finally, while many of the interviewees reveal a working knowledge of Canadian cinema and related national identity questions, few seem to consider it a relevant issue in their own work as screenwriters. The focus for most English-Canadian professionals instead is upon telling their own versions of contract story ideas in original ways, rather than devising a national ‘voice’ to communicate a cultural identity.
- ItemOpen AccessDevice to Root Out Place: An Ethnography of Public Art in East Calgary(2014-09-29) Varney, Catherine Opal; Rusted, BrianIn 2008, a large-scale outdoor sculpture created by world-renowned artist, Dennis Oppenheim, was installed on a proposed site for a billion dollar mixed-use real estate redevelopment project in Calgary’s historic Ramsay neighbourhood. Oppenheim’s sculpture, Device to Root out Evil is one of many public artworks recently installed in East Calgary and serves as a prime example of how public art is being integrated into urban development and private real estate projects. This research project explores how cultural artifacts, such as public art, are being used as placemaking tools. This localized case study connects artistic practice to economic emplacement and displacement, cultural consumption and production, and urban change. It is a mixed-methods ethnography that moves beyond visual analysis of public art to incorporate sensory experiences of being in a place, thereby revealing how attending to the senses can contribute to the placemaking process.
- ItemOpen AccessDiaspora, Identity and the Canadian Media: The Case of the Second Polish Corps in World War Two and the Re-settlement of its Veterans in Alberta(2014-09-30) Jaworska, Aldona; Melnyk, GeorgeIn the few recent decades, the issue of identity formation has spurred major debates among scholars of various academic backgrounds and specializations, who examined the identity formation of individuals and groups. This thesis explores the process of identity formation in Polish ex-servicemen who chose to reside in Calgary after they fulfilled a two-year long farm work contract in Canada during the early post-WWII years. It examines how Canadian immigration policies and Canadian media impacted the treatment and the portrayal of the Polish ex-servicemen, and it compares their treatment with the portrayal of the returning Canadian veterans. This comparison of the two groups highlights the factors that went into the Polish veterans’ identity formation in this period. Based on a sample of newspaper articles printed in Canada and in Calgary, and interviews conducted with the Polish ex-servicemen, who chose to reside in Calgary after they fulfilled their contract of working on farms, the study examines the differences between media portrayal and self-portrayal in this group The study also examines the role of government policies as a factor in media representation of Polish veterans and how these policies influenced their place in Canadian society. The lingering results of this negative treatment and portrayal indicate the power of such factors to influence identity formation in this group right into the 21st century.
- ItemOpen AccessEffects of Higher Education Policy and Planning on a Campus Women's Centre and the Provision of Safer Space(2015-09-28) Carroll, Melanie; Nelson, FionaSince the 1970s, higher education has increasingly been coordinated by discourses of quality control, return on public investment, and student engagement. Concurrently, social justice movements have demanded attention to access and inclusion of systematically disadvantaged groups. One way universities have addressed these demands is through designated services. This research investigates one such service, a women’s centre, and its struggle to survive during the retrenchment of women’s movement gains and rise of student engagement measures. Using institutional ethnography, I discover how extralocal texts for student engagement, primarily the National Survey of Student Engagement, shaped university priorities, were activated by local administrators, and created the conditions to amalgamate the women’s centre with a centre for community-engaged learning. Administrators’ actions, thus, effectively damaged the very engagement they were trying to create by prioritizing extralocal discourses over the local practices of community building, safer space, and engagement already developed within the women’s centre.
- ItemOpen AccessMarketing and Shaping Shanghai in Travel Writings: A Critical Analysis of the Evolving Tourism Discourse in the New York Times Travel Section(2016) Wang, Yifan; Schneider, Barbara; Keller, Jessalynn; Draper, DianneTourism discourse has been affirmed to be a site where tourist destinations are constantly invented, reinvented, produced and reproduced. More importantly, tourism discourse constantly undergoes variation along with the changing social context and the unfixed power relations between host and guest society. By using critical discourse analysis to analyze the New York Times travel writings covering Shanghai and tracing the evolving discourse, it is discovered that the newspaper increasingly projects the image of Shanghai as a metropolis for diverse consumption by adopting commercialized language, and consequently cultivates a homogenized discourse and routinized ways of viewing Shanghai. It is concluded that the changing discourse suggests the newspaper’s closer relationship with the tourism industry, and the travel writings have become the product of consensual marketing for profitability and reflect the collaborative relationship between the newspaper and the tourism industry of Shanghai.
- ItemOpen AccessMy Father the Homeless Guy: An Autoethnographic Account of Identity Negotiation among Daughters of Homeless Men(2016) Ortwein, Kala; Schneider, Barbara; Atkins, Chloe; Bakardjieva, MariaThe homeless are generally categorized by the housed as being either worthy or unworthy, which is dependent on whether the homeless person is seen at fault for their precarious lifestyle. Regardless, the “inner lives” (e.g. relationships, self-worth, culture, et cetera) of the homeless are rarely considered (Snow & Anderson, 1987; Sommerville, 2013). Accordingly, those associated with the homeless also feel the side-effects of the stigmatization of the visibly homeless. This study considers the perspectives of daughters of homeless men, namely men who are deemed “unworthy.” Using an autoethnographical approach, life-story interviews, and discourse analysis, this study investigates identity negotiation among 10 women. The identifiers, abandoned, caretaker, and wounded betrayer frequently alluded to in the narratives of this study, describe how daughters conceptualize their own and their fathers’ moral identity. I aim to provide a previously unconsidered perspective of homelessness in order to challenge current perceptions of the so-called unworthy poor.
- ItemOpen AccessOrganizational identity, power, and peacekeeping: An analysis of informal communication in Canada's military(2015-02-02) Shapovalova, Olga M.; Schneider, BarbaraI assume a critical-interpretivist stance to analyze the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as an organization, which enables me to go behind the scenes of its allegedly hierarchical and rigid power structures. While conducting a qualitative thematic analysis of one discussion on the Army.ca website, I uncover how soldiers resist organizational control in their informal communication. I argue that soldiers who post on the forum exert power by challenging and redefining the notions of peacekeeping and military identity in their comments. In their interactions, soldiers resist the publicly accepted image of the CAF as a peacekeeping force and reclaim their identity as warfighters. Grounding this research in organizational communication theory, I apply a communication lens to the CAF and show how the concepts of organizational culture, identity, image, power, and resistance are produced, contested, and reproduced through the process of communication, constantly interconnecting and mutually influencing each other.
- ItemOpen AccessPros and Cons: Negotiating Value in Blog Culture(2016) Gaden Jones, Georgia; Bakardjieva, Maria; Mitchell, David; Redden, Joanna; Jubas, Kaela; Rak, JulieAn analysis of conversations with bloggers in both focus groups and interviews as well as a decade-long observation of blogging culture informs this exploration of the ways in which bloggers discursively construct value, and the contingencies of these constructions. The goal was to examine which characteristics and behaviors emerged as privileged and valued and those which were not, extrapolating these visions of value to broader social and cultural contexts where self-documentation and public presentations of self via social media are increasingly prevalent. The participants in this study took up multiple, complex and often intersecting discourses of value. Value operated in understandings of textual conventions and standards; of the norms and potential of blogging as a technology of the self (Foucault, 1988); as social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) and subcultural capital (Thornton, 1997); in the ‘scene’ (Irwin, 1977) of blogging culture; and as economic value. In this context, tensions emerge where constructions of authenticity operate as both hallmarks of independence and strategies for monetization and professional progress; and the individual quest for meaning and self-care is situated in a cultural context where usefulness (to others) and validation (from others) often shape visions of value.
- ItemOpen AccessPublic Broadcasting and the Politics of Media in Ghana: A Case Study of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC)(2016) Anoff-Ntow, Kwame Akuffo; Tettey, Wisdom, J.; Taras, David; Gbanou, Komlan; Odartey-Wellington, Felix; Abdul-Rahaman, AbuThis thesis tells the story of an African, national broadcaster, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, GBC, and its efforts to transition into a public service organization. Since its inception in 1935, GBC has morphed through many forms: from a small, regional radio station, to a “giant media organization” with national footprint broadcasting across several platforms. Having lost its “privileged,” state-sponsored, monopoly status after Ghana’s fourth Republic, GBC is forced to chart a new course as competitive market forces and new communication technologies combine to exert new and unfamiliar pressures on its operations and editorial practices. This thesis focuses on how GBC has fared within this multi-party, competitive market environment, by focusing on the legislative regime that establish and guide its operations, and how through its institutional practice and “culture,” it has responded to the new media ecology. Within such a liberal regime where “public interest” is often interpreted as what the public is interested in, and the marketplace as the place for meeting individual preferences, how GBC is funded becomes an important component to how it conceptualizes and executes its public service mandate. How GBC’s funding sources affect its public service mandate constitute an important question for this study. Through the theoretical lens of political economy, this thesis analyzes institutional texts, interviews and other secondary data to gauge the extent to which GBC has lived up to its constitutional, public service mandate, and concludes that while it has fared well in some sectors, a lot remains to be done. It observes that although geographical and language access has improved, GBC’s scope of programming has not due largely to its excessive reliance on advertising and sponsorship revenue. It concludes that GBC could lose its editorial control over externally generated programs and dilute its public service brand unless it adopts modern day broadcasting practices of commissioning such programs. The study recommends that a leaner, media organization, with a responsive management and technology, driven by well-trained human resource will transform GBC into a communicative space that truly serves as the avenue for democratic expression for its “audience, as citizens, players or consumers” (Syversten, 2010).
- ItemOpen AccessRecoding the Creative City: Calgary's Changing Relationship with the Arts(2016) Turner, Elysia; Redden, Joanna; Thrift, Samantha; Felske, LorryOver the last decade, the Creative City has become a dominant paradigm, a neoliberal, and meta-narrative of how creativity can be used to economically stimulate and develop the city. The ideas behind the Creative City have influenced cultural policy-making practices around the globe and have been a driving influence in Canadian civic arts policy since its inception. From this time, Canadian cities have been transforming how they live with the arts, primarily through policy and funding practices that emphasize private over public investment, and that position the arts not as a social commitment but as an instrument of economic development. My research, which focuses on the implementation of Creative City policy in Calgary, investigates how the Creative City paradigm impacts funding practices, policymakers interpretation and definition of culture, and the ways in which it has, and continues to shape the role of the arts within the city.
- ItemOpen AccessReification of the Teenage Victim: How Canadian News Frames Cyberbullying as a Social Problem(2015-04-29) Felt, J. Mylynn; Schneider, BarbaraThis study utilizes framing theory to conduct a mixed method content analysis of Canadian print news coverage of four high-profile teen suicides linked with cyberbullying. Results demonstrate that print news discourse frames cyberbullying as a social problem. News coverage of these deaths emphasizes more female victims than males, demonstrating a predisposition to focus on more ideal victims in the construction of social problems. Each case involves a process of reducing complicated circumstances leading to the teen’s death down to overly simplified caricatures portrayed as victims for the cause of cyberbullying. The social problem frame emphasizes the need for public attention and awareness of cyberbullying as well as new legislation to address an emerging issue. It is unclear whether legal changes in response to such extreme cases will impact the more common instances of what the literature describes as cyberbullying.
- ItemOpen AccessResistance and Reinscription: Revitalizing Mi'kmaq Culture in Newfoundland - A Grounded Theory Discursive Analysis of Oppression and Resistance(2014-02-24) Butler, Charles WIlliam James; Tettey, Wisdom; Rusted, Brian; Devine, HeatherThis dissertation utilizes a grounded theory methodology to explore the intersection between Indigenous and multi-cultural societies. It focusses on an Indigenous people who have long been framed as fully assimilated into white society. It critiques how Canada purports to be a multi-cultural mosaic in a post-colonial state and argues that these concepts fail to account for the presence of Indigenous peoples, their interactions with the dominant settler society and the fact that the Indian Act represents the ongoing colonization of Indigenous people. Further, it argues that discussions of the place of Indigenous people in Canada often work from the assumption that in order to survive and to prosper, Indigenous people must abandon many of the key cultural practices that differentiate their worldview from that of the settlers. That is, they must choose to be assimilated and to become hyphenated-Canadians. This thesis examines how Mi’kmaq in Newfoundland are revitalizing their Indigenous culture through resistance and reinscription. It problematizes notions of hybridity and challenges the authority of governments, which seek to control Indigenous identity through a legislative framework, oppression, and marginalization. It argues for the legitimacy and authenticity of Indigenous identities that incorporate cultural practices from Pan-Indian sources in order to re-establish holistic Indigenous cultures. Finally, it presents an alternative understanding of how Indigenous identities can continue to flourish even when immersed in a society, which seeks to erase them.
- ItemOpen AccessThe Darkroom Series: Constituting Place Through Camera-Phone Photography(2017) Lee, Christine Yunkyung; Rusted, Brian; Leblanc, Jean-René; Tepperman, CharlesThis research project explores how the social and creative practices of camera-phone photography are implicated in the constitution of place. From 2012 to 2014, there was a series of exhibits in Seattle, entitled the Darkroom Series, showcasing Instagram photos taken by Pacific Northwest residents. A mixed methods approach was adopted to capture the picturing and viewing practices of Instagram users at multiple on- and offline sites across various Darkroom Series-related activities. Camera-phone practices are considered in the contexts of earlier amateur photography traditions and contemporary developments in networked mobility and communication. Drawing upon concepts from tourism studies of embodied performances of place enacted through photography, the personal, social, digital and sensory experiences of individual camera-phone photographers are seen to contribute to public, collective representations of regional identity and the configuration of place.
- ItemOpen AccessThe Diaspora Intellectual In The Age of New Media: The Case Of Tarek Fatah(2015-05-05) Perveen, Zahida; Keren, MichaelThis thesis explores how Diaspora intellectual Tarek Fatah has breached the boundaries of traditional media by using his Facebook profile to reach his audience in Pakistan and around the world. He challenges the religious and political discourse in Pakistan and the Islamic world in general. I have used qualitative content analysis to explore the structure and style of his themes which first appeared in his books and then on his Facebook profile. The purpose is to investigate the role and limitations of Facebook for a Diaspora intellectual as a way to transmit his messages. The study has also probed the audience reaction to some of his posts by using British scholar Stuart Hall’s theory of Coding/Decoding (1980). It is concluded that Tarek Fatah is successful in challenging the religious dogmas but the interactive nature of Facebook and his rabid style blur the logical discussion found in his books.
- ItemOpen AccessThe English Canadian historical film, 1970-2010: An enquiry into marginality(2014-05-05) Thiessen, Eric; Melnyk, GeorgeThis study examines the relationship of English Canadian historical feature films to Canadian cinema, historical subjects, and the formation of Canadian national identity. The thesis analyses key Canadian historical films from 1970 to 2010 that stand out from Canadian cinema’s typically art-house fare, and includes original interviews with Canadian film professionals and a comparison of contrasting models in Quebec and the United States. This study concludes with an argument for this subgenre’s marginality in Canada, which is rooted in the relationship of Canadians to their own history, a lack of “mythic nationalism” in Canadians’ understanding of their identity, budget limitations, a reliance on state subsidies, and a general lack of interest in Canadian cinema. English Canadian historical cinema is anti-heroic, does not accept a single meta-narrative of identity, and is distinctly multicultural in its content, which contributes to the creation of a unique identity that reflects contemporary Canadian values.
- ItemOpen AccessUnderstanding Volunteerism in the Kananaskis Region: A Case Study of Staff and Volunteers(2014-05-05) Zabel, Lauren; Einsiedel, EdnaThe goal of this thesis is to explore the perceptions and experiences of both staff and volunteers in the Kananaskis region. Conservation volunteerism is a practice that is important to society and often an Essential component to environmental organizations, inclusive of government parks departments. An empirical study was conducted using applied thematic analysis to examine quantitative and qualitative survey data collected from staff and volunteers in the Kananaskis region of Alberta. An emphasis was placed on comparing responses of staff and volunteers in terms of their motivations and values. The study found that although volunteers and staff both believe Alberta Parks has volunteers predominantly because of resource shortages, volunteers seem to appreciate the personal relationships they develop with local staff more than Alberta Parks may recognize. Patterns that emerge in this study have the potential to influence the future of volunteer practices in conservation volunteerism.