Browsing by Subject "Political campaigns"
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Item Casting spells, casting ballots : magic, affect, noise and music in political campaigns(2009-08) Patch, Justin Lee Belano; Erlmann, VeitThis treatise examines the auditory culture of the political campaign through the theoretical hubs of magic, affect and noise. It examines the ways in which sound is used in campaigns and how those sounds affect listeners who are participating. The data for this project was collected though ethnographic work with various Democratic organizations in Austin, TX from 2006-2008.Item Enduring character : the problem with authenticity and the persistence of ethos(2013-12) Dieter, Eric Matthew, 1976-; Roberts-Miller, Patricia, 1959-This dissertation is interested in how people talk about character in a variety of public spheres. Specifically, it explores the tangled relationship between authenticity and ethos, or what is taken as the distinction between intrinsic and constructed character. While this dissertation does not presume to settle the question of authenticity’s actuality, it does discuss the ways authenticity cues in rhetorical acts continue to influence how “sincere character” in those acts is understood, even as audiences exhibit shrewdness in recognizing that character is a purposeful manifestation of the rhetor. The fundamental phenomenon this dissertation seeks to describe is how people, with better and worse success, negotiate the dissonance between valuing character as authentic and as presentation and representation. Character in this view is a much richer and more paradoxical concept than many discussions of the term admit. A too-diluted study of ethos limited strictly to pinpointing credibility in an argument makes it difficult to articulate why an exhibition of character sometimes works and sometimes flops. Ethos in its fullest complexity is, and is not, constructed by any single act; it is the consequence of narratives, both of those narratives, and also what we say about those narratives; it is something we know about a rhetor, at the same time that it comes from what the rhetor claims to know; it is, most important, an appeal to authenticity, even when we know ethos is discursively, kairotically, and socially constructed. This dissertation offers an expanded definition of ethos as rhetorical transactions that rhetors and audiences mutually negotiate in order to determine the extent to which all sides will have their rhetorical needs met, and the extent to which all sides can assent to the those needs. The dissertation, using the works of Wayne Booth, Kenneth Burke, and Chaïm Perelman as its primary theoretical structures, offers pedagogic implications for these mutual negotiations.Item Political communication systems and voter participation(2009-08) Baek, Mijeong; Shaw, Daron R., 1966-This dissertation explores how institutional settings regulating the media and campaigns affect voter participation. The broader question is what types of political communication systems are likely to produce the most engaged and participatory citizens as well as equal participation. Assuming that political participation is affected by its underlying costs and benefits, I hypothesize that political communication systems that lower information costs for voters have higher turnout levels and reduce upper class bias. Political communication systems are measured by media systems, access to paid TV advertising, and campaign finance laws. In the country-level turnout models, investigating seventy-four electoral democracies, I find that public broadcasting systems increase voter turnout, while changing the effect of paid advertising. Public broadcasting systems that allow paid TV advertising have a higher turnout levels than those that ban paid advertising. Conversely, paid advertising in private broadcasting systems have a negative marginal effect on voter turnout. On the other hand, campaign finance laws that allow more money to enter election campaigns increase voter participation. So campaign contribution and spending limits depress turnout and public finance increases it. The hierarchical models in Chapter 6 show that political communication systems also change the relationship between individual socioeconomic status and voter participation. Generally political communication environment that lower information costs for voters reduces socioeconomic bias for voters. Public broadcasting systems, access to paid TV ads, and free TV time, thus, mitigate the effect of education on voting. Additional investigation also shows that the age gap between voters and nonvoters is conditioned by different types of political communication systems. Both partisan press and public direct funding promote younger citizens’ participation, thus decreasing the generation gap. In contrast, campaign contribution/expenditure limits enlarge such gap. Broadcasting systems also affect the effect of age on voting. Because older people spend more time watching television than younger ones, the type of broadcasting system has a disproportionately larger impact on older citizens.Item Political contradictions : discussions of virtue in American life(2010-05) LaVally, Rebecca; Hart, Roderick P.; Jarvis, Sharon E.; McCombs, Maxwell; Sparrow, Bartholomew H.; Stroud, Natalie J.This dissertation asserts that American political culture faces a crisis of virtue and explores the role of citizens, journalists and politicians in fostering it. The historic election of Barack Obama on a platform of hope and change in 2008 suggests that Americans yearn for an infusion of virtue into political life. I assert, however, that we have lacked a lexicon of political virtue, or any systematic understanding of which virtues we value and which matter most to us. Nor have we understood whether groups who constitute key elements of our democracy—citizens, journalists, politicians, men and women, Democrats and Republicans—value virtues in politics similarly or differently. Without a working knowledge of the anatomy of virtue in the body politic, what is to prevent us from having to change again? By charting the virtue systems of these key groups, I have made explicit what is implicit to reveal that political virtue is more valued—and more present—than Americans likely realize. This exploration, I believe, contributes to the scholarship of political communication by enabling a fuller and more useful understanding of American political culture—and of the contradictions, curiosities, and surprises that enrich it.Item Vitriolic voices : political candidates and the incivility gender gap online(2015-05) Cardona, Arielle M.; Stroud, Natalie Jomini; Jarvis, Sharon EThe advent and diffusion of many Internet technologies have inspired the possibility of a new, Habermasian, online public sphere. Social networking sites are one of these potential spaces -- the free and open communication among users allows for a generally unmediated message flow that could help to foster ideal deliberative discussion. Of particular concern for the reality of such a space, however, is the troubling amount of incivility online, especially toward groups traditionally disenfranchised in the public sphere such as women. Although scholars have looked at the presence of incivility within comment sections, scant research has studied incivility on social networking websites, whether political context affects the presence of incivility, or how incivility differs by gender. This thesis applies a content analysis of Twitter @-replies toward male and female gubernatorial and Senate candidates to understand not only differences in the amount of incivility, but the context of such communication. The findings suggest that women receive more uncivil communication than men. Even when controlling for various campaign characteristics, Democratic women are more likely than Republican women to receive uncivil replies, and male authors are more likely than female authors be uncivil online. The online public sphere appears to present a new set of challenges for female candidates, and gender must continue to remain a variable in studies moving forward.