Browsing by Subject "Representation"
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Item Abstraction, representation, and entropy(2012-05) Payzant, Marcus Ray, 1982-; Mutchler, Leslie; Petersen, BradleyThe following graduate report is an overview of my artistic endeavors spanning the past three years at the University of Texas at Austin. While at UT, I have concentrated on making paintings that focus on the relationship between abstraction, representation, and entropy. Using banal, often overlooked cultural objects as subject matter, I paint ambiguous scenes that teeter between disintegration and formation. Representations of banal detritus within an ambiguous natural space become a metaphor for memory, culture, and life and death alluding to unseen forces and, ultimately, a lack of control. Using a combination of random and deliberate decisions, I aim to create a commentary about the unpredictable yet conformist aspects of the world in which we participate.Item Class negotiations : poverty, welfare policy, and American television(2014-08) Murphy, Nicole Lynn; Beltrán, MaryTelevision impacts the shape of our common culture by depicting our societal fears, myths and hopes in a constantly shifting and negotiated manner. There is a glaring lack of research regarding media representations of children/adolescents in poverty. The study of this intersection is critically important for understanding societal discourse around education, healthcare, government assistance programs and even the opinions and practices of teachers and administrators. Children under 18 years of age represent 24 percent of the population, but they comprise 34 percent of all people in poverty in the United States. Among all children, 45 percent live in low-income families and approximately one in every five (22 percent) live in poor families. In this thesis, I trace discourse in the mainstream news and popular culture regarding children and poverty through welfare debates and policy changes in the U.S. from the 1990s and 2000s through the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. Subsequently, I analyze the construction of this discourse on narrative television in the shows My So Called Life (ABC, 1994-1995) The O.C. (FOX, 2003-2007) and Shameless (Showtime, 2011-). Through this mapping, I examine how gender, sexuality, race, and age are mobilized in constructing televisual representations of poverty; as well as how shifting discourses and depictions make transparent society’s anxieties regarding poverty.Item Constructing Tibetanness from the 'in-between' : self-representations of hybrid identity in Tibetan fiction films(2016-05) Carlton, Scott Andrew; Frick, Caroline; Ramirez Berg, CharlesTibet is a contested and ambiguous concept perched precariously between multiple and contradictory sociocultural and historical discourses. In this thesis, I examine self-representation in the liminal space of Tibet through twelve Tibetan feature films in order to determine how the filmmakers, crew, and actors use the poetics of film to construe Tibetan individual, cultural, religious, political, and national identity. These films, with Tibetan directors, Tibetan actors, and largely Tibetan crews, have been described in the press as “Tibetan.” I adopt a neoformalist approach informed by postcolonial theory, especially Homi K. Bhabha’s conception of hybridity, to examine Tibetan self-representations in fictional feature films. The twelve films consistently make use of narrative structures in which protagonists embark on physical quests in order to locate ambiguous or unknowable entities. Their stories often take the form of road films, and emphasize internal yearning and development over external plot detail. Internal character development and identity are conveyed through cultural performance of songs, theater, and storytelling that serve as narrational devices for self-expression and identity articulation. Thematically, identity is represented on these journeys through paradigms of tradition and modernity, complex hybridity, and disenfranchised masculinities. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the career and films of auteur Pema Tseden, an internationally respected auteur. In Tseden’s films, the implications of liminality for Tibetan identity are dire, but the possibility for the processual and ongoing articulation and construction of Tibetanness through the medium of film are emphasized. This group of Tibetan film representations may not reveal an essential Tibetanness, but they do constituate an invaluable platform for critical deconstruction, formulation, articulation, and continual rearticulation of Tibetanness.Item Consuming and performing Black manhood : the Post Hip-Hop Generation and the consumption of popular media and cultural products(2011-12) Williams, Adam Clark; Watkins, S. Craig (Samuel Craig); Moore, Leonard N.Thirty-three young Black men of the Post-Hip Hop Generation (ages 18-25) in Austin, TX, participated in a qualitative study centering on questions investigating Black manhood, media use, and the consumption of popular cultural products. Further, the researcher examined representations of Black men throughout music videos, films, and MySpace profiles. The purpose of this study was to enhance our knowledge about how Black manhood is being defined, conceptualized, and expressed by young Black men, and how significant media and cultural consumption plays a role in their lives. This study probes six questions: RQ1: How do young Black males interpret the images and messages about Black men from mainstream media? RQ2: What types of cultural products are being consumed by young Black men? Why do they consume them? RQ3: How do young Black males define Black manhood? RQ4: Do these cultural products influence the ways that young Black men define/express Black manhood? If so, how? Focus group sessions were conducted throughout the study, which were video recorded and transcribed. Transcriptions were then imported into a qualitative software program known as Atlas.ti, where statements related to the purpose of the study were coded and analyzed. These coded statements were then compared to observations made by the researcher from the examined media representations.Item Critical media analysis of female soldier representation from magazines to Instagram : a cultural studies perspective(2014-12) Cedillo, Stacia Ann; De Lissovoy, Noah, 1968-The purpose of this work is to explore the gendered cultural meanings surrounding female soldier representations found in official print and online military recruiting materials during Global War on Terror (GWOT) period (2001-2014). Using recruitment advertisements found in three popular women’s magazines and on the official Instagram accounts of the U.S. military, three research questions are addressed: 1) What visual and/or textual codes found in female soldier representations are used to construct gendered cultural meanings around women in the military?; 2) How do print and online recruiting materials encourage audiences to co-construct, produce, and distribute these gendered cultural meanings?; and 3) What is the significance of these gendered cultural meanings and audience interactivity/participation in female soldier representations during the GWOT era? A visual analysis of the data was performed using critical media guidelines provided by Luke & Iyer (2011) and Kellner (2015, 2013). The findings of this study suggest that there continue to be underlying, embedded notions of essentialized femininity found in contemporary representations of female soldiers. These findings and military recruiting materials are discussed in relation to broader public discourse around female soldiers and civilian women in society, particularly within important cultural moments of rising fourth-wave feminism and changing patterns of media consumption. In addition, a discussion around the growing need to conceptualize and study audiences as hybridized producers/consumers and as active interpreters of media messages in the digital age is provided. In doing so, this work seeks to understand and recognize the incredible power mass media (particularly social media) audiences have in constructing popular representations of all women. Finally, important implications related to the overwhelming lack of critical gender, media, and military studies in American school-contexts, key sites for military recruiters, are discussed.Item Development and Testing of Achievement from Multiple Modes of Mathematical Representation: Audio, Audio-Visual, and Kinesthetic(2012-02-14) Ozel, SerkanThis dissertation is comprised of three articles that build on and support each other. The first article is an extensive literature review, and the other two are empirical studies. In this literature review, the author discussed major theories about human learning processes to guide instructional designers about effective integration of multiple modes in interactive learning environments and explored the knowledge base on representations and manipulatives in mathematics education. The first empirical study?s purpose was to investigate effects of affordances provided with virtual learning environments at different treatment durations. Students from multiple sixth-grade classes were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups differed by allocated session time (10-, 20-, and 30-minute). The online manipulative tool (OMT), which was designed to scaffold learning in operations with rational numbers, allowed students to use the following three components in any order: (a) audio, (b) audio-visual, and (c) manipulatives. Analyses showed that students who used manipulatives most achieved highest; whereas, students who used audio-visual most achieved the second highest. Additionally, the 30-minute group used each component of OMT the least. A meaningful increase in standard algorithm use over manipulatives suggested a transition from concrete to abstract thinking. The second empirical study's purpose was to compare OMT's different representational aspects and to estimate OMT's effects on achievement and technology acceptance when compared to those of traditional classroom activities. Elementary- and middle-grade students were randomly assigned to the control group or one of three treatment groups: (a) audio-visual, (b) virtual-kinesthetic, and (c) dual-mode (virtual-kinesthetic and audio-visual combined). When the control group was compared with experimental groups, pre- and post-test results suggested that OMT was more effective than traditional classroom activities in improving students' understanding of operations with rational numbers. When the students' achievement on pre- and post-tests among experimental groups was compared, no substantial difference was found. However, students in the dual-mode group scored the highest on the technology acceptance survey. Students' technology acceptances also differed among different SES levels but not genders. The results suggested that virtual manipulatives provided additional affordances for conceptual understanding. However, students' acceptances of technology should be considered when implementing new technologies.Item DOES THIS ACCURATELY DEFINE US? BLACK AUDIENCE MEMBERS’ VIEWS ON AFRICAN AMERICAN REALITY TELEVISION(2017-04-18) Ponder, Erica Michelle; Johnson, Robin; Kim, Nam Y.; Wiedenfeld , GrantAs reality television has evolved over time, the representation of African Americans in the popular genre has as well. This paper discusses the changes in these representations and how certain reality programs that are centered around Black culture affect their audiences. Using media reception studies and insight from cultivation theory, I conducted qualitative research through focus groups with black audience members who watch the popular reality television programs Love and Hip Hop, Real Housewives of Atlanta, and Married to Medicine. Focus groups reported that reality television featuring black cast members are highly enjoyable but would like to see more positive interactions and situations. Focus groups reported using reality television as a basis for how not to behave in certain social situations. This work sheds light on the history of Blacks on reality television and in the media, the history and growth of reality television, and the role that reality television plays in black viewers’ lives today.Item From chaos to harmony : public participation and environmental policy(2011-12) Dulay, Marcel; Eaton, David J.; Rodriguez, Victoria E.; Spelman, William G.; Browning, Larry D.; Maxwell, Madeline M.Water quality issues in the Leon River watershed in Texas exemplify the challenges water resource managers and the public face in the ongoing effort to improve water quality in our nation’s water bodies. Some pollutant sources are difficult to regulate and likely managed through non-regulatory means, such as voluntary action. The Leon River challenge is how to go beyond regulations to address the concerns of citizens and produce options they want to develop and implement voluntarily that address a common good. This dissertation argues that voluntary measures work only if those who must take action support the action, otherwise conflict can occur. Thus, it is critical to learn what people are willing to do to promote the public good (e.g., swimmable streams). This can be achieved through an effective public process. Public participation processes may have barriers that impede success, such as inadequate access, intimidation, competing interests, limited accountability, and scientific mistrust. This dissertation developed process enhancements to overcome these barriers based on documented public participation principles. This research tested whether specific enhancements can improve the quality of a public process and achieve desired process outcomes. This dissertation reports on quasi-experiments with stakeholders making actual environmental decisions. The findings suggest that these enhancements are capable of reducing conflict and reducing the time to produce environmental policy. Five process enhancements (representation, film, narratives, deliberative decision-making, and decision support) were put into operation to provide options for government agencies and stakeholders to consider when undertaking public participation processes. The lack of access can be avoided by giving stakeholders voice with representation through different types of meetings levels (e.g., focus groups and town hall meetings). Films, when captured, edited, and shown to others, can remove the mechanisms typically associated with the intimidation perceived by speakers during discussions. Narratives were used to collect information about stakeholders to develop a deeper understanding of the diversity of interests affected by a policy, avoiding gridlock from positional bargaining. Deliberative decision-making (no voting) can assure stakeholders have real and equitable decision-making power, with scenarios collaboratively developed that address the common good. Application of a decision support system (DSS) as an overlay to a scientific model can provide stakeholders direct access to science so they can develop scenarios, evaluate alternatives, and choose solutions.Item Girlfriends : the (in)visbility of black women on television(2010-08) Harrison, Dominique Victoria; Fuller, Jennifer; Wilkins, KarenWhile Black women are more visible in media and popular culture today, the range of their visibility remains narrow and in continuation within the dominant ideology concerning Black women within the U.S. The images that are presented discourage a full understanding of the conditions of the Black female experience and the ways these women are socially constituted within it (Newton & Rosenfelt 1985). This paper examines how the images of Black women are contradictory to the depressed socioeconomic status of Black women, how the show Girlfriends works to move beyond these images by expressing moments of the lived experience of Black women, and how Black women recognize their position within the oppressive institutional forces of the U.S. by negotiating their representations.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 Latina/o representation on teen-oriented television : marketing to a new kind of family(2013-12) Hochhalter, Johannah Maria; Beltrán, MaryThe ABC Family cable network has become a leader in television for the millennial audience through a strategy of increased diversity on screen and an emphasis on complexity in family life. These goals have both been aided by representing Latina/o characters in the network’s flagship series: The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Pretty Little Liars, Switched at Birth, and The Fosters. In this thesis I engage in industrial, textual, and discourse analysis of these series, finding that Latina/o representation is increasing in both quantity and quality as network executives and producers attempt to appeal to the ethnically diverse millennial generation. These attempts, however, are not perfect. This project pinpoints a span of time in which ABC Family shifts towards more Latina/o inclusion both on-screen and behind the camera. At the same time, ABC Family programming dominates ratings in its key millennial demographic, indicating a correlation (of undetermined causation) between increased Latina/o representation and ratings.Item Lost & found(2012-05) Botkin, Erica Lauren; Sutherland, Dan, 1966-; Goodman, MarkI have produced two distinct bodies of work, landscapes and portraits. In both, I investigate my relationship to the subject. My role as the photographer fluctuates between the time I spend by myself and the time I spend with others. The landscape series promotes the act of looking and obscures my presence as photographer. Responding to the saturation of images in the media today, I hope to recalibrate viewers to a slower pace. I look for spaces at the edge of a controlled wilderness that are still accessible to the general public and mimic the identity of my childhood home in Northern California. Both color and black and white photographs sentimentalize manicured nature in ordinary locations. These landscapes facilitate reflection through consideration of similarities and differences. In doing so, these locations lose their specificity and approach a generalized sense of the sacred. The second body of work is a series of photographic collaborations I make with my autistic friend, Will Johns. He selects the subject matter and operates the light meter. His autism informs his methods, which then affects my methods. His idiosyncratic choices force me to photograph subject matter I wouldn’t be drawn to and compose in a new way where I must consider Will as author, subject and subject matter. In these images Will stands with the light meter, his posture gaze and facial expressions explicitly make reference to our relationship and reveal the complexity in separating subject matter from subject and the difficulties artists face with issues of exploitation and authorship.Item Majestic presence : narrating the transgender self in 21st-century Tamiḻakam(2016-08) Rajic, Nikola; Selby, Martha Ann; Hyder, Syed Akbar; Stewart, Kathleen; Rudrappa, Sharmila; Freiberger, OliverThe purpose of this dissertation is to document the emergence of a new identity of Tamil transgender women as articulated by transgender women themselves through works of autobiographies (Revathi’s Veḷḷai mōḻi and Living Smile Vidya’s Nān Vityā), fiction (Priya Babu’s novel Mūṉṟām pāliṉ mukam), or scholarship (Priya Babu’s ethnography of her community Aravāṇikaḷ, camūka varaiviyal). I pay special attention to how these women articulate their selfhood and the identity of their community in reaction to the specificities of the South Indian context (association with religious festivals such as the Aravaṉ festival in Koovagam, and other transgender phenomena in the Indian subcontinent). Self-narration, especially for stigmatized people and communities is inextricably linked to overcoming traumatic experiences, and for asserting new identities. Speaking and writing about one’s trauma can be a powerful force for transforming pain and loss into political action, and studying it can help us understand how trauma creates new possibilities of community and public culture that is as attentive to shame and alienation as it is to pride and solidarity. Therefore, I focus on trauma and stigma, as expressed in the aforementioned works, as vehicles for creating unique public cultures and artistic subjectivity.Item Museums and memory representations of violence in Colombia, 2000-2014(2015-05) Perry, Jimena; Garfield, Seth, 1967-; Brower, Benjamin CThis report discusses and analyzes the ways in which some communities remember. Focusing on examples that display violence in museum settings, the main goal of this paper is to illustrate how certain social groups interpret and represent atrocities of their past. Since the decade of 2000, Colombia has seen the emergence of several memory museums that intend to account for the violence of the 1980s and 1990s. These bottom up venues are part of a process of healing and community building that serves the purpose of restoring the social fabric of the peoples affected by brutalities. In contrast, there are the top bottom initiatives, generally undergone by the state, which narrate the past in a different way. This report examines the differences in the stories told by official and non-official museums and the messages both of these venues want to convey. Drawing from sources and secondary bibliography about the National Museum of Colombia and two departmental institutions, The Hall of Never Again, Antioquia, and the Traveling Museum of the Memory of Montes de María, Sucre and Bolívar, this report describes the exhibitions of violence the coordinators of these venues had produced, what are they pursuing, and their intentions.Item Negotiating documentary space(2012-05) Rudin, Daniel; Perzyński, Bogdan, 1954-; Lewis, RandolphThis essay attempts to propose an art practice based on an ethical and aesthetic relation of author, subject, and viewer. This relationship is productive of results that are seen as critical to a precise, useful, and ethical representation of social problems.Item Negotiating the represented city : Los Angeles, the city of perpetual becoming(2012-12) Chadwick, Ashley Blair; Long, Christopher (Christopher Alan), 1957-; Neuberger, Joan HLos Angeles has long been identified as a fragmented city, by nature of its cosmology and those constructed perceptions that constitute it in the collective imaginary. In an effort to articulate, interrogate and understand such a place, we have come to rely on its representations to function as mediators of meaning, delivering through their simulation of the city an experience of the real, lived Los Angeles. As a result, the relationships between the real and the representation become skewed, altering the processes by which we engage with the everyday. To better understand the implications of this dialectic, I examine four representations of the city: Disneyland, David Hockney’s “Domestic Scene, Los Angeles,” David Gebhard and Robert Winter’s A Guide to Architecture in Southern California and the BBC “One Pair of Eyes” installment “Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles.” By analyzing representations of Los Angeles produced in a range of media, it becomes possible to discern the complex relationships between the real and envisioned Los Angeles, and to recognize the constructive force that emerges out of this discursive space.Item Photography as readymade art(2006-12) Hernsberger, Erin; Hazlett, Allan; Nathan, Daniel; Germany, RobinThe task of identifying and then explaining art and aesthetic experience is made more complicated by the recent inclusion of typical non-art objects into the world of art. It used to be that our artistic senses were engaged whenever a work struck us as very closely resembling an object, a scene, or a person. But, with the development of new media being added to traditional media, and, with the acceptance of what is included within the realm of art, it has become less and less clear what actually counts as art and why. For example, one might wonder what makes Warhol’s Brillo Boxes more valuable, or at least, more "art" than the kind bought in stores. The realm of fine art photography reveals the same confusion. Skeptics question if photographs can contain any artistic value at all – after all, why should we value a photograph of an object instead of simply valuing the object itself? In this paper, I explain the skeptic's argument, and while accepting the premise that an interest in a photograph is sometimes an interest in the object within the photograph, I will show how, even in such a case, a photograph can still be considered art -- art most similar to readymade art.Item Political institutions, public management, and bureaucratic performance: political-bureaucratic interactions and their effect on policy outcomes(2009-05-15) Hawes, Daniel ProphetThis project examines the determinants of political responsiveness to bureaucratic performance. A large literature exists that has examined how bureaucratic agencies are responsive to political institutions. While policy theory contends that the reverse is also true ? that is, political institutions engage in political assessment of policies ? there is little empirical literature examining this important question. Indeed, research in public administration suggests that political responsiveness only occurs following massive bureaucratic failure or policy crises. Using data from Texas public school districts, this dissertation explores the role of policy salience in determining the likelihood of political responsiveness to bureaucratic outputs and outcomes. The findings suggest that issue salience is the key determinant of political involvement in administration. Furthermore, this project incorporates the concepts of descriptive and substantive representation in examining these questions. The results indicate that policy salience depends on the composition of the interests of political institutions. Furthermore, race and ethnicity work to shape those preferences and, in turn, condition what policy makers deem as salient. The findings suggest that descriptively unrepresentative political institutions are less likely to be responsive to the needs of those who are not represented (e.g. Latino students). Thus, representation is central to political responsiveness when the policy outputs or outcomes in question are not universally salient. Finally, this project examines whether political institutions can influence policy outcomes, and, more importantly, what factors ? environmental, organizational, managerial ? either facilitate or constrain the political influence of elected officials. The findings suggest that goal and preference alignment between political institutions and bureaucratic agencies is critical in enhancing political influence ? a finding that is commonly argued in formal models of political control, but rarely tested empirically. This research also finds that bureaucratic power or independence can work to hinder political influence of policy outputs.Item Professional wrestling’s “attitude” adjustment : WWF programming, realism, and the representation of race during the neoliberal nineties(2014-05) Piper, Timothy John; Beltrán, MaryThe WWE, formerly known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), has a long history of showcasing harmful stereotypes via hyperracialized characters. Many academics have observed these characters and the overarching types to which they can be assigned as being indicative of the respective sociohistorical conditions in which they were produced. During the mid-to-late nineties, the WWF embarked upon a re-branding effort focused on adopting a new “Attitude” that purported to offer a more “realistic” form of “sports entertainment.” Throughout this “Attitude Era” the WWF purposely obfuscated delineations between fact and fiction, and subsequently, performers and racialized performance. Set against the backdrop of the neoliberal nineties, then – a period when America was supposedly embracing multiculturalism, the “welfare state” had been discarded in favor of fiscal conservatism, and possessive individualism catapulted to paramount importance – in what ways did the hyperracialized characters and storylines of the WWF Attitude Era reflect contemporary American cultural attitudes toward race? This study seeks to answer this question by incorporating historiographical work, industrial discourse analysis, and textual readings to analyze the representation of race in WWF programming of the late nineties. Utilizing an ideological textual analysis to understand how weekly episodes of Monday Night Raw and monthly pay-per-view events that aired during the years of 1997-1999 embodied and reified certain values, beliefs, and ideas, this project will look to the cultural, industrial, and political discourses circulating during the 1990s to show how they intersect with the WWF programming of the period.Item Radio friendly paradigm shifter : progressive college broadcasting in the 1980s(2011-08) Uskovich, David Anthony; Kearney, Mary Celeste, 1962-; Downing, John; Kackman, Michael; Nehring, Neil; Staiger, Janet; Watkins, CraigThis dissertation examines the role progressive college radio played as a site of political engagement for youth in the United States in the 1980s, particularly in its connection to punk culture. Progressive college radio is defined here as a particular type of noncommercial radio broadcast from university radio stations. It inherited from educational radio a commitment to democratic communication and from community radio a commitment to localism and representing underrepresented communities. Progressive college radio continued these missions, but also applied them to music, playing music considered unmarketable by the commercial music industry and thereby representing underrepresented musicians. College radio is popularly remembered as the radio format that helped create commercial alternative rock in the 1980s. This narrative effaces the way the most progressive college stations programmed music hostile to the music industry, especially punk and its related genres, and the way that progressive DJs often felt uncomfortable being part of a farm system for the music industry, something this dissertation investigates. Through discourse analysis of archival materials from four progressive college radio stations, as well as interviews with former DJs, this dissertation reveals how station personnel understood the role of progressive college radio in relation to the music industry, punk culture, the dominant culture of the US in the 1980s, and in their own lives. By investigating how the DJs conceptualized and debated their programming and production practices, this project illustrates how progressive college radio responded to increasing music industry scrutiny and a conservative culture’s increasingly hostile and narrow conceptions of youth. This dissertation also charts the ways progressive college radio DJs mobilized punk’s do-it-yourself (DIY) mode of cultural production, amateur aesthetics, and anti-authoritarianism, to create both a physical and sonic space for self-representation and creative expression.