Browsing by Subject "Conservatism"
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Item Correlates of student conservatism(Texas Tech University, 1967-06) Perkins, Jerry DonaldNot availableItem Coverage of the religious right in five major newspapers(Texas Tech University, 1996-08) Dalkowitz, John P.People of the conservative political inclination often assert that the media have a strong liberal bias. L. Brent Bozell and Brent H. Baker, editors of the book And That's the Way It Isn't: A Reference Guide to Media Bias (1990), among others of the conservative poHtical persuasion, point to somewhat compelling anecdotal evidence of a liberal media bias. A significant liberal media bias, however, has yet to be empirically proven. In fact, W. Lance Bennett, author of News: The Politics of Illusion (1988), asserts that although the media are biased in certain aspects, they are not biased in terms of ideology. Members of what is commonly referred to as the religious right, such as Focus on the Family, the Concerned Women of America, the Christian Coalition and the American Family Association, feel particularly alienated from the media. Although no study has been found concerning media's treatment of the religious right, research concerning bias in the coverage of presidential elections coupled with the existing research regarding newspaper coverage of religion in general might lead one to believe that if there is a bias against the religious right, it is not significant. This study, consequently, is a content analysis of five major newspapers' coverage of the religious right.Item GLBTQ representation on children's television : an analysis of news coverage and cultural conservatism(2015-05) Mayer, Christopher John; Tyner, Kathleen R.; Fuller-Seeley, KathrynThe invisibility of GLBTQ characters on children's television stands in stark contrast to trends in adolescent and adult television over the past decade. A deep cultural ambivalence exists as to whether or not sexual identities are appropriate topics for young children on preschool television programming. For example, a marriage between Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie has been the topic of many petitions, political debates, and academic studies over the years. This analysis seeks to reconcile the cultural ambivalence through analysis of news coverage over the most prominent children's shows associated with latent and/or manifest GLBTQ content. New stories that make up the research sample are analyzed for "Anti-GLBTQ" logics, and placed in a broader discourse analysis of societal expectations for children’s television, and what is considered to be appropriate content. The goal of this study is to draw greater attention to debates over how to best serve the educational needs of young children, and posits that the increasing numbers of children living under same-sex parented households are underserved by the children's television industry. The ambivalence by the industry seems suspect given prior, and well established efforts, of children’s shows, such as Sesame Street, and the ability of educational programming to bridge cultural, class, and racial divides. This study represents a preliminary effort to extend the conversations about children’s television content to be more inclusive of GLBTQ identities.Item Individual differences in processing emotional television: The role of Liberalism and Conservatism(2011-08) Moya, Leslie; Bradley, Samuel D.; Smith, Jessica E.Research has shown that media effects vary among individuals, and individual differences play an important role in predicting media effects. The current study investigates the role that individual differences play in processing emotional television. It specifically looks at how Liberals and Conservatives process emotional television messages differently. This study uses psychophysiological measures to examine differences in systems associated with the appetitive and aversive motivational systems, and to examine resource allocation to emotional stimuli. Participants also participated in a signal detection task to test recognition sensitivity for the television messages. A pretest was conducted in which 70 participants rated each stimulus clip based on their experienced arousal, experienced valence, and experienced dominance during the clip. Clips that best fit the experimental conditions; highly arousing pleasant, moderately arousing pleasant, highly arousing unpleasant, and moderately arousing unpleasant. Seventy-nine participants enrolled in Mass Communications classes or belonging student organizations participated in the final experiment. This study found that activation of the appetitive and aversive motivational systems vary among liberals and conservatives, such that participants high in liberalism responded most strongly to unpleasant clips and participants high in conservatism responded most strongly to pleasant clips.Item The coverage and portrayal of the Christian Coalition in network news(Texas Tech University, 1997-12) Burns, Ryan JosephThe Christian Coalition, the nation's preeminent conservative profamily group, has become a powerhouse in RepubHcan poHtics since its founding in 1989. The Christian Coahtion has been active in all levels of politics and has been a common subject of media reports and scrutiny. The topic of the Christian Coalition's coverage and portrayal in the national news media is important because news organizations across the country are paying much more attention to the Coalitions political involvement and influence. The research surrounding the Christian Coalition's portrayal in the news media is lacking a content analysis of how the national evening broadcast news portrays the coalition and its members. This research project will focus on the content of Christian Coalition news stories and will include questions about the media coverage of the Christian Coalition. This study will examine the amount and tone of television coverage of the Christian Coalition during time period between Labor Day and Election Day during the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections.Item The Fourth Party and conservative evolution, 1880-1885(Texas Tech University, 2000-08) Owen, Keith RichmonThe Fourth Party developed after the defeat of the British Conservative Party in the General Election of 1880. Four men united to rally the Conservatives in Parliament and to present an active opposition to the Liberals. Soon their attention was turned to their own party and the newly enfranchised voters from the Reform Bill of 1867. This dissertation appears to be the first detailed study of the Fourth Party in almost one hundred years. The Fourth Party is viewed as part of the evolution of the Conservative Party into a modern political movement. The pressures of a more democratic political system forced changes in the type of leadership demanded by the new voters, in how political figures appealed to the electorate, and in how the parties would involve the voters in the electoral process. The Fourth Party initiated new ways to involve the Conservative rank and file in the service of the party and to attract new supporters. The Conservative leadership was forced to review the organization of the party and to find effective ways to deal with the members of the Fourth Party.Item Tropes and Topoi of Anti-Intellectualism in the Discourse of the Christian Right(2011-08-08) Carney, Zoe L.Christianity is not anti-intellectual; however, there is a distinct quality of anti-intellectualism in the rhetoric of the Christian Right. This thesis explores the ways in which rhetors in the Christian Right encourage anti-intellectual sentiment without explicitly claiming to be against intellectualism. I argue that the Christian Right makes these anti-intellectual arguments by invoking the tropes and topoi of populism, anti-evolution, and common sense. I analyze how Pat Robertson, as a representative of the Christian Right, used the stock argument, or topos, of populism in his 1986 speech, in which he announced his intention to run for President. I argue that while Robertson used the generic argumentative framework of populism, which is "anti-elitist," he shifted the meaning of the word "elitist" from a wealthy person to an intellectual person. This formed a trope, or turn in argument. Next, I consider the Christian Right's argument against the teaching of evolution. I analyze William J. Bryan's argument in the Scopes Trial, a defining moment in the creation-evolution debate. I show that Bryan used the topos of creationism, which included the loci of quality and order, to condemn the teaching of evolution, arguing that it would be better to not have education at all than for students to be taught something that contradicts the Bible. Finally, I consider how both Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin used the topos of common sense. Reagan used this topos to create a metaphorical narrative that was to be accepted as reality, or common sense. Sarah Palin, then, used the common sense narrative that Reagan had created to support her views. By calling her ideas "common sense" and frequently referencing Reagan, her rhetoric gives the illusion that good governing is simple, thus removing the space for an intellectual in public life.