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Title: POSTMODERN FEMINISM, HYPERTEXT, AND THE RHETORIC OF COOKING WEBSITES.
Creator: McGrane, Heather, Applen, J.D., University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This study explores the ways cookbooks and their rhetorical dimensions have been re-imagined using hypertext and Web technology. Using the tenets of postmodern feminist rhetoric and Web design theory, the study considers how commercial cooking hypertexts construct users' identities. Although hypertext is a potentially empowering technology, democratizing rhetoric and knowledge making practices, commercial hypertext often circumscribes agency formation and prohibits participation....
Show moreThis study explores the ways cookbooks and their rhetorical dimensions have been re-imagined using hypertext and Web technology. Using the tenets of postmodern feminist rhetoric and Web design theory, the study considers how commercial cooking hypertexts construct users' identities. Although hypertext is a potentially empowering technology, democratizing rhetoric and knowledge making practices, commercial hypertext often circumscribes agency formation and prohibits participation. Participatory, constructive hypertexts are difficult to design and costly to maintain. Of the three sites studied, Epicurious.com, BettyCrocker.com, and FoodNetwork.com, only Epicurious.com encourages meaningful communication between users and between users and designers. In many ways, Epicurious.com conceives of its users as active agents. Most of its content celebrates many knowledge making practices traditionally considered feminine and embodied. In contrast, BettyCrocker.com and FoodNetwork.com rely on closed, proprietary systems designs to maintain their authority. Users have little opportunity to participate as active agents. In small ways, however, users can begin to deconstruct the hypertexts, to resist the standards and strictures of expertly created recipes by reporting variations and opinions. The features that most reflect the tenets of a constructive feminist hypertext make possible some small movements toward agency.
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Date Issued: 2007
Identifier: CFE0001855, ucf:47369
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001855

Title: ESTHER REED'S POLITICAL SENTIMENTS AND RHETORIC DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
Creator: Harkins, Kennedy, Kamrath, Mark, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: In 1780, during the final leg of the American Revolutionary War, Esther Reed penned the broadside "Sentiments of an American Woman." It circulated in Philadelphia, persuading citizens to turn over their last dollars to the cause. Reed's broadside called to action the women of Philadelphia; they knocked on doors, campaigned with words, and stepped firmly into the "man's world" of politics and revolution. Reed's words were so effective that women in cities across the colonies took to raising...
Show moreIn 1780, during the final leg of the American Revolutionary War, Esther Reed penned the broadside "Sentiments of an American Woman." It circulated in Philadelphia, persuading citizens to turn over their last dollars to the cause. Reed's broadside called to action the women of Philadelphia; they knocked on doors, campaigned with words, and stepped firmly into the "man's world" of politics and revolution. Reed's words were so effective that women in cities across the colonies took to raising money as well. Using New Historicist and feminist reading strategies, this study compares and contrasts Reed's rhetoric to Thomas Paine's Common Sense, another revolutionary propaganda piece of the era. I argue that the two pieces differ in key aspects due to Paine's existence in the public sphere and Reed's in the private. From her position in the private sphere, Reed was able to produce a provocative piece of rhetoric that stands out against other female literature at the time.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: CFH2000323, ucf:45712
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000323

Title: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF CLAIMS-MAKING: BAHAMIAN ANGLERS VS. NON-RESIDENT SPORTS-FISHERMEN.
Creator: Neuenschwander, Sara, Lynxwiler, John, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: On January 1, 2007, the Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources in the Department of Marine Resources of the Bahamas promulgated significant revisions to their sports-fishing regulations. While the new laws were designed to benefit the Bahamian fisheries, they caused a vociferous uproar among non-resident anglers who frequent the islands of the Bahamas to sports-fish. Of particular concern are the new regulations that limit the maximum weight and number of fish which non-resident anglers...
Show moreOn January 1, 2007, the Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources in the Department of Marine Resources of the Bahamas promulgated significant revisions to their sports-fishing regulations. While the new laws were designed to benefit the Bahamian fisheries, they caused a vociferous uproar among non-resident anglers who frequent the islands of the Bahamas to sports-fish. Of particular concern are the new regulations that limit the maximum weight and number of fish which non-resident anglers may keep on their boat. My research examines the claims-making activities made by American anglers on four different sports-fishermen/cruising forums. The analysis focuses on the motifs, rhetorical idioms, counterrhetorical strategies, and styles among sports-fishermen who fish the Bahamas.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: CFE0002293, ucf:47833
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002293

Title: The Feminine Margin: The Re-Imagining of One Professor's Rhetorical Pedagogy--A Curriculum Project.
Creator: Alvarez, Camila, Brenckle, Martha, Bowdon, Melody, Mauer, Barry, Weishampel, John, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Writing pedagogy uses techniques that institutionalize dichotomous thinking rather than work against it. Cartesian duality has helped to create the marginalization of people, environments, and animals inherent in Western thought. Writing pedagogy based in current-traditional rhetoric uses a writing process that reinforces the hierarchical structure of Self/Other, Author/Reader, and Teacher/Student. This structure, in conjunction with capitalism, prioritizes the self and financial gain while...
Show moreWriting pedagogy uses techniques that institutionalize dichotomous thinking rather than work against it. Cartesian duality has helped to create the marginalization of people, environments, and animals inherent in Western thought. Writing pedagogy based in current-traditional rhetoric uses a writing process that reinforces the hierarchical structure of Self/Other, Author/Reader, and Teacher/Student. This structure, in conjunction with capitalism, prioritizes the self and financial gain while diminishing and objectifying the other. The thought process behind the objectification and monetization of the other created the unsustainable business and life practices behind global warming, racism, sexism, and environmental destruction. A reframing of pedagogical writing practices can fight dichotomous thinking by re-imagining student writers as counter-capitalism content creators. Changing student perceptions from isolation to a transmodern, humanitarian, and feminist ethics of care model uses a self-reflexive ethnography to form a pedagogy of writing that challenges dichotomous thought(-)by focusing on transparency in my teaching practice, the utilization of liminality through images, the use of technology to publish student work, and both instructor and student self-reflection as a part of the writing and communication process. This practice has led me to a theory of resistance and influence that I have titled The Resistance Hurricane, a definition of digital rhetoric that includes humanitarian and feminist objectives that I have titled Electric Rhetoric, and a definition for the digitally mediated product of that rhetoric that I call Electric Blooms or electracy after Gregory Ulmer's term for digital media.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFE0007777, ucf:52371
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007777

Title: Constituting Rhetorical Agency in a Feminist Discursive Space.
Creator: Raynor, Ella, Scott, Blake, Jones, Natasha, Brenckle, Martha, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis details an analysis of a project called Exposing the Silence in order to learn about agency and discursive space. This gallery for traumatic birth stories serves as a relevant site for better understanding how women are constituting their experiences with embodied autonomy and rhetorical dis/empowerment and how they come together to visually and discursively form a feminist space online. I completed a rhetorical analysis of the birth narratives and of an interview with Lindsay...
Show moreThis thesis details an analysis of a project called Exposing the Silence in order to learn about agency and discursive space. This gallery for traumatic birth stories serves as a relevant site for better understanding how women are constituting their experiences with embodied autonomy and rhetorical dis/empowerment and how they come together to visually and discursively form a feminist space online. I completed a rhetorical analysis of the birth narratives and of an interview with Lindsay Askins, one of the creators of Exposing the Silence.My study finds that a dyadic relationship between embodied autonomy and rhetorical agency exists while women negotiate power constructs during their traumatic obstetric experiences. When their rhetorical agency was diminished, so was their embodied autonomy. While they asserted agency during the traumatic experience, loss of agency is the main reason for their feelings of trauma. However, they work to re-assert rhetorical agency by sharing their narratives in the discursive space. The discursive space of the website is feminist because it promotes the rhetorical agency of its users and provides the opportunity for its users to socially construct that agency.My study contributes to the rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM) through its focus on how women constitute their embodied autonomy and rhetorical agency when speaking about an experience in which they lost some amount of both. I especially contribute an interpretation of how rhetorical agency, a discursive assertion of agency, can interact with agency itself, or embodied autonomy, without being the same entities. This project also contributes to RHM through its focus on how an online feminist visual-discursive space is socially constructed by its occupants and creators to assert rhetorical agency.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: CFE0007238, ucf:52238
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007238

Title: The Modern Church Communicates: Rhetoric and Hypertext in Church Website Design.
Creator: Palmer, Edward, Applen, John, Jones, Dan, Stephens, Sonia, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The Internet and the World Wide Web have supplanted many paper-based information systems. People turn to the web to locate local services in the same way they find ecommerce sites such as Amazon. Churches of all sizes must develop effective and attractive websites to attract new members and inform existing members. These two groups form distinct audiences that must be correctly targeted by the website content. Other churches may visit to gather ideas for their programs; they are a third group...
Show moreThe Internet and the World Wide Web have supplanted many paper-based information systems. People turn to the web to locate local services in the same way they find ecommerce sites such as Amazon. Churches of all sizes must develop effective and attractive websites to attract new members and inform existing members. These two groups form distinct audiences that must be correctly targeted by the website content. Other churches may visit to gather ideas for their programs; they are a third group of site visitors. Organization of hypertext on the web requires skills that are different than writing for print. Technical communicators possess those skills and can help others write better hypertext. This research examines eight churches that cross three categories: denomination, size, and location. The websites of the churches are analyzed from the standpoint of the reader and the technical communicator to determine their effectiveness in content, organization, and underlying structure of the webpages, and then consider if geography, size, or denomination account for the observed differences. Audience and message are lesser issues than organization of information and navigational guidance for the reader. No remarkable differences were observed based on size, geography, or denomination. The technical communicator can assist non-technical content producers in developing skills in organization and classification.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: CFE0006635, ucf:51218
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006635

Title: Analysis of Dialog Surrounding Animal Testing in Vaccine Research.
Creator: Johnson, Natalie, Scott, Blake, Rounsaville, Angela, Wheeler, Stephanie, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This study analyzed the scholarly discussions surrounding the topic of animal testing for vaccine potency and safety in humans. The primary stakeholders in this discussion are the scientists, medical professionals, and researchers who are involved in animal models and alternative testing methods, specifically related to vaccine development. The debate among these professionals regarding alternative methods, which encompasses any testing approach that does not involve animals, has been...
Show moreThis study analyzed the scholarly discussions surrounding the topic of animal testing for vaccine potency and safety in humans. The primary stakeholders in this discussion are the scientists, medical professionals, and researchers who are involved in animal models and alternative testing methods, specifically related to vaccine development. The debate among these professionals regarding alternative methods, which encompasses any testing approach that does not involve animals, has been analyzed. This project looks at the argument from a historical perspective, which provides background context for the current debate and an understanding of how the current arguments originated. The changing mindset over time of using animals has been explored, as well as conversations and arguments about alternative methods.Research questions and prior questions consider the conversation's historical influences on this present day debate and are answered in this analysis. Persuasive language has been looked at, with a consideration of how it is used both within and outside the research community, as well as the influences the various stakeholders have on one another. The burgeoning field of the rhetoric of health and medicine provides a forum and a community of scholars for a rhetorical analysis such as this one to be discussed and the findings considered for other rhetorical studies. This research design project provides a comprehensive rhetorical analysis that uses the topoi theory and a textual-intertextual analysis as a framework, along with detailed coding of the texts. This project shows the advantages of a combined rhetorical approach that leads to understanding a debate through identifying multiple layers of argument. The findings and its implications for those within rhetoric, the scholarly community, as well as the scientific field are discussed in the final chapter.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: CFE0006609, ucf:51288
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006609

Title: The Rhetoric of Public Memory in Urban Park Revitalization in 20th Century Jacksonville, Florida.
Creator: Kelley, Mary, Cassanello, Robert, Gordon, Fon, Dandrow, Edward, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: In recent decades the study human geography has become an increasingly enlightening mode of analysis in the historian's repertoire. One area in which this method has proved insightful is in the exploration of the various ways that interpretations of the past in public places shape the public consciousness. Works on this topic have primarily been broad studies that look at public representations of the past regionally, nationally, or even globally. This study seeks to provide a more nuanced...
Show moreIn recent decades the study human geography has become an increasingly enlightening mode of analysis in the historian's repertoire. One area in which this method has proved insightful is in the exploration of the various ways that interpretations of the past in public places shape the public consciousness. Works on this topic have primarily been broad studies that look at public representations of the past regionally, nationally, or even globally. This study seeks to provide a more nuanced perspective on the complex ways in which public memory and place are created, and continually shaped, through a case study which takes an in-depth look at this process in one locale. This comparative analysis of Jacksonville, Florida's Hemming and Memorial Parks throughout the twentieth century explores how monuments, commemorative events, and historical discourses act as rhetorical devices which promote partisan ideologies within public parks, which shape the public perception of the both the past and the present. In particular, this study explores the revitalization campaigns of Hemming and Memorial Parks in the last quarter of the century to demonstrate how the rhetoric of public memory has been used strategically to recreate the public perception of each park in an effort to control access to and behavior within each park.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: CFE0006125, ucf:51176
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006125

Title: The Normalization Process of Multimodal Composition: "Unseeing" People of Color in Multimodal Composition Scholarship.
Creator: Davis, Yumani, Rios, Gabriela, Roozen, Kevin, Pigg, Stacey, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This study attempts to identify normalization cues within multimodal scholarship to highlight moments of (")un-seeing(") multimodal composing practices and theoretical contributions from non-Western traditions. Advocates of this approach to teaching composition understand it as an effective way for incorporating other voices into the curricular structures of composition courses. However, the instructional resources do not include or cite research that does not lend itself easily to dominant...
Show moreThis study attempts to identify normalization cues within multimodal scholarship to highlight moments of (")un-seeing(") multimodal composing practices and theoretical contributions from non-Western traditions. Advocates of this approach to teaching composition understand it as an effective way for incorporating other voices into the curricular structures of composition courses. However, the instructional resources do not include or cite research that does not lend itself easily to dominant views of composing within academia. I assert that academia must go further with how value is assessed. There is research that acknowledges the multiliteracies practices found within subcultures of America, and plenty of work that deems the communicative practices observed in these subcultural communities as valuable. However, it is more than just including and citing scholarship from and about people of color's compositional practices, academia must also employ these ways of knowing and being to fully empower students and utilize the knowledge that the students bring with them to the FYC classroom. The dominant assignment genre in academia is the academic essay. Other dominant methods of communication and transferring scholarship are the journal article, annotated bibliography, proposal, and personal essay. Not to mention the many scholars who have critiqued academia for privileging print literacies, which although may be multimodal, promotes a multimodality of one culture and ideological standpoint. Although the seminal texts from the study offer exceptional multimodal composition research and classroom resources, if we can agree that (")the mission of education is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life(") and that literacy pedagogy, essentially what the FYC course offers, (")is expected to play a particularly important role in fulfilling this mission,(") then failing to see the value and utilize the scholarship from and about people of color ensures those that are marginalized continue to be (")un-seen(") and students remain unprepared for the tasks of composing and communicating outside of school (New London Group 60).
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: CFE0005779, ucf:50071
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005779

Title: XML: Beyond the Tags.
Creator: Meloy, Christopher, Applen, John, Kamrath, Mark, McDaniel, Thomas, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: XML is quickly being utilized in the field of technical communication to transfer information from database to person and company to company. Often communicators will structure information without a second thought of how or why certain tags are used to mark up the information. Because the company or a manual says to use those tags, the communicator does so. However, if professionals want to unlock the true potential of XML for better sharing of information across platforms, they need to...
Show moreXML is quickly being utilized in the field of technical communication to transfer information from database to person and company to company. Often communicators will structure information without a second thought of how or why certain tags are used to mark up the information. Because the company or a manual says to use those tags, the communicator does so. However, if professionals want to unlock the true potential of XML for better sharing of information across platforms, they need to understand the effects the technology using XML as well as political and cultural factors have on the tags being used. This thesis reviewed literature from multiple fields utilizing XML to find how tag choices can be influenced. XML allows for the sharing of information across multiple platforms and databases. Because of this efficiency, XML is utilized by many technologies. Often communicators must tag information so that the technologies can find the marked up information; therefore, technologies like single sourcing, data mining, and knowledge management influence the types of tags created. Additionally, cultural and political influences are analyzed to see how they play a role in determining what tags are used and created for specific documents. The thesis concludes with predictions on the future of XML and the technological, political, and cultural influences associated with XML tag sets based on information found within the thesis.
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Date Issued: 2011
Identifier: CFE0004138, ucf:49067
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004138

Title: Tracing Literacy Practices of Multilingual Writing Tutors.
Creator: Nieves, Somaily, Rounsaville, Angela, Hall, Mark, Pinkert, Laurie, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Research in writing studies has focused on multilingual writers and the rhetorical affinity they gain from shuttling between multiple languages (Lorimer Leonard, 2014; Guerra, 2004) Writing center studies have focused on multilingual writing tutors and have argued the need to use more tutors who are literate in more than one language because they possess skills that can be useful in writing centers (Lape, 2013; Thonus, 2014). However, not much research has been conducted to better understand...
Show moreResearch in writing studies has focused on multilingual writers and the rhetorical affinity they gain from shuttling between multiple languages (Lorimer Leonard, 2014; Guerra, 2004) Writing center studies have focused on multilingual writing tutors and have argued the need to use more tutors who are literate in more than one language because they possess skills that can be useful in writing centers (Lape, 2013; Thonus, 2014). However, not much research has been conducted to better understand what literacy practices these multilingual writing tutors develop that make them better equipped in writing center tutoring sessions. This thesis focuses on a case study of a multilingual writing tutor and traces her literacy practices through the collection of a literacy history interview, three video-recordings of tutoring sessions, and a stimulated recall interview in which segments from the sessions are the focus of the interview. The thesis employs New Literacy Studies (Barton and Hamilton, 1998; Heath, 2001) and Canagarajah's (2013) translingualism as a lens to identify literacy practices that stem from a multilingual upbringing and the ways they manifest in tutoring sessions. The findings of this study reveal two main literacy practices that are prevalent in the tutor's tutoring strategies, empathy and rhetorical attunement. More importantly, the study reveals the complexities of tracing literacy practices across time. Through data analysis, I claim that the participant's rhetorical attunement may have derived from her multilingual upbringing as many researchers suggest (Lorimer Leonard, 2014; Guerra, 2004). Ultimately, my research also argues that these practices were amplified by other factors in her life that helped foster her rhetorical learning and led to a metacognitive practice. I assert that through her exposure to rhetorical education in the tutor training course, the Writing and Rhetoric major, and the continual training and practice of tutoring, her rhetorical affinity is developed into a metacognitive practice in which she thinks critically about the moves she is making in her tutoring session, rather than simply reacting to changes in the session; she thinks of the various effects her decisions may have on the learning occurring in the session. The results of this study demonstrate the complexities of tracing literacy practices over time and argue for a less linear approach to tracing literacy practices. By understanding the ways informal and formal education affect the development of those practices, we can better trace those practices from its origin through its progression in order to understand how those practices are enhanced through various domains. Although this study begins to address the literacy practices that are distinct to multilingual writing tutors, it is limited due to the number of participants that took part in this study. More research needs to be conducted to study the literacy practices of multilingual writing tutors.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: CFE0006631, ucf:51285
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006631

Title: Using Hashtags to Disambiguate Aboutness in Social Media Discourse: A Case Study of #OrlandoStrong.
Creator: DeArmas, Nicholas, Vie, Stephanie, Salter, Anastasia, Beever, Jonathan, Dodd, Melissa, Wheeler, Stephanie, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: While the field of writing studies has studied digital writing as a response to multiple calls for more research on digital forms of writing, research on hashtags has yet to build bridges between different disciplines' approaches to studying the uses and effects of hashtags. This dissertation builds that bridge in its interdisciplinary approach to the study of hashtags by focusing on how hashtags can be fully appreciated at the intersection of the fields of information research, linguistics,...
Show moreWhile the field of writing studies has studied digital writing as a response to multiple calls for more research on digital forms of writing, research on hashtags has yet to build bridges between different disciplines' approaches to studying the uses and effects of hashtags. This dissertation builds that bridge in its interdisciplinary approach to the study of hashtags by focusing on how hashtags can be fully appreciated at the intersection of the fields of information research, linguistics, rhetoric, ethics, writing studies, new media studies, and discourse studies. Hashtags are writing innovations that perform unique digital functions rhetorically while still hearkening back to functions of both print and oral rhetorical traditions. Hashtags function linguistically as indicators of semantic meaning; additionally, hashtags also perform the role of search queries on social media, retrieving texts that include the same hashtag. Information researchers refer to the relationship between a search query and its results using the term (")aboutness(") (Kehoe and Gee, 2011). By considering how hashtags have an aboutness, the humanities can call upon information research to better understand the digital aspects of the hashtag's search function. Especially when hashtags are used to organize discourse, aboutness has an effect on how a discourse community's agendas and goals are expressed, as well as framing what is relevant and irrelevant to the discourse. As digital activists increasingly use hashtags to organize and circulate the goals of their discourse communities, knowledge of ethical strategies for hashtag use will help to better preserve a relevant aboutness for their discourse while enabling them to better leverage their hashtag for circulation. In this dissertation, through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Twitter discourse that used #OrlandoStrong over the five-month period before the first anniversary of the Pulse shooting, I trace how the #OrlandoStrong discourse community used innovative rhetorical strategies to combat irrelevant content from ambiguating their discourse space. In Chapter One, I acknowledge the call from scholars to study digital tools and briefly describe the history of the Pulse shooting, reflecting on non-digital texts that employed #OrlandoStrong as memorials in the Orlando area. In Chapter Two, I focus on the literature surrounding hashtags, discourse, aboutness, intertextuality, hashtag activism, and informational compositions. In Chapter Three, I provide an overview of the stages of grounded theory methodology and the implications of critical discourse analysis before I detail how I approached the collection, coding, and analysis of the #OrlandoStrong Tweets I studied. The results of my study are reported in Chapter Four, offering examples of Tweets that were important to understanding how the discourse space became ambiguous through the use of hashtags. In Chapter Five, I reflect on ethical approaches to understanding the consequences of hashtag use, and then I offer an ethical recommendation for hashtag use by hashtag activists. I conclude Chapter Five with an example of a classroom activity that allows students to use hashtags to better understand the relationship between aboutness, (dis)ambiguation, discourse communities, and ethics. This classroom activity is provided with the hope that instructors from different disciplines will be able to provide ethical recommendations to future activists who may benefit from these rhetorical strategies.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: CFE0007322, ucf:52136
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007322

Title: MUSLIMS IN THE MEDIA:THE NEW YORK TIMES FROM 2000 - 2008.
Creator: Bishop, Autumn, Gay, David, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Although it is widely recognized that Muslims and Middle Easterners were negatively portrayed in the media after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, few scholars examine the long term media presentations of Islam in the United States. The studies that have explored the relationship of the portrayal of Islam by the media have used short term, limited sampling techniques, which may not properly reflect the popular media as a whole. The current research uses data from the New York Times...
Show moreAlthough it is widely recognized that Muslims and Middle Easterners were negatively portrayed in the media after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, few scholars examine the long term media presentations of Islam in the United States. The studies that have explored the relationship of the portrayal of Islam by the media have used short term, limited sampling techniques, which may not properly reflect the popular media as a whole. The current research uses data from the New York Times from 2000-2008 in order to determine whether the popular media was portraying Islam in a disparaging manner. The analysis includes the use of noun phrases in the publications in order to establish if the media portrays Muslims and Islam negatively. In particular, I am interested in the trends of this media's representation of Islam, if the publications promoted a stigma towards Islam, and if the trend continued from 2000 to 2008. The results of the analyses are presented and discussed. The need for additional research in this area is also discussed.
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Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: CFE0003255, ucf:48545
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003255

Title: Disciplinary Mythologies: A Rhetorical-Cultural Analysis of Performance Enhancement Technologies in Sports.
Creator: Lamothe, John, Scott, Blake, Janz, Bruce, Campbell, James, Oliveira, Leonardo, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: In sports discourse, the relationship between athletics and technology is often paradoxical. On the one hand, modern sports rely on technology at every level, from training and tracking of players to the equipment and apparel used by athletes to the game strategies and playing fields themselves. Nearly all of these technologies are intended to increase athletic performance on some level. And yet, certain performance enhancement technologies can be criticized for being antithetical to the...
Show moreIn sports discourse, the relationship between athletics and technology is often paradoxical. On the one hand, modern sports rely on technology at every level, from training and tracking of players to the equipment and apparel used by athletes to the game strategies and playing fields themselves. Nearly all of these technologies are intended to increase athletic performance on some level. And yet, certain performance enhancement technologies can be criticized for being antithetical to the spirit of sports, which is framed as being a strictly natural and pure human endeavor. Using a rhetorical-cultural methodological approach, popular sports discourse is analyzed to investigate how arguments in contested spaces between sports and technologies get (re)negotiated and (re)articulated to fit within a sports social language that emphasizes (")pure(") and (")natural(") ideals of sport. This often results in a dichotomy where the sport/technology relationship is either black boxed, thus being subsumed in the sport social language and becoming transparent and the relationships unarticulated, or the technology is regulated out of the sport through rules and bans. The reason for this articulation is attributed in large part to the deep humanism embedded in the sport social language. How a shift to a posthuman perspective would effect sports discourse is explored. These conclusions about underlying values in sports discourse lead to the formation of a new theoretical framework called disciplinary mythologies. Building off of Foucault's disciplinary power, Scott's disciplinary rhetorics, and Barthe's mythologies, disciplinary mythologies are discrete units of persuasion that both construct and constitute claims by drawing upon layered narratives and shifting associations that lose their context when entering the realm of myth. Two specific disciplinary mythologies are discussed(-)the level-playing-field topos and the nostalgia enthymeme(-)and it is shown how sports discourse often draws upon them to shape arguments and actions.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: CFE0005970, ucf:50773
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005970

Title: Making Waves, Mixing Colors, and Using Mirrors: The Self-Regulated Learning Support Features and Procedural Rhetoric of Three Whole-Body Educational Games.
Creator: Johnson, Emily, McDaniel, Rudy, Vie, Stephanie, Applen, John, Pigg, Stacey, Lindgren, Robb, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This dissertation investigates the question, (")How can the procedural rhetoric of three whole-body educational games improve the understanding of self-regulated learning with digital technology?(") It explores three whole-body educational games (WBEGs) using a quantitative study, a case study, and analyses of their procedural rhetoric to better understand the roles these types of games can have in teaching digital literacy and self-regulated learning (SRL) skills. The three WBEGs, Waves,...
Show moreThis dissertation investigates the question, (")How can the procedural rhetoric of three whole-body educational games improve the understanding of self-regulated learning with digital technology?(") It explores three whole-body educational games (WBEGs) using a quantitative study, a case study, and analyses of their procedural rhetoric to better understand the roles these types of games can have in teaching digital literacy and self-regulated learning (SRL) skills. The three WBEGs, Waves, Color Mixer, and Light and Mirrors, are each intended to teach science concepts to players. These games are similarly structured in that they all invite players to immerse themselves in the game by standing on the (")screen(") (the games project images on the floor). The WBEGs differ from traditional console video games because they receive input from players via motion-sensing technology, requiring players to make large movements with their bodies to influence elements within the game. This study explains SRL as a complex combination of internal (mental) behavior, external (observable) behavior, and interpersonal (social) behavior, identifying within three WBEGs the presence of elements supporting the SRL behaviors of goal setting, strategy planning, collaboration, progress monitoring, feedback, and reflection. These findings inform the understanding of SRL by revealing that each game includes a different combination of SRL-supporting elements that encourage the use of SRL skills in different ways. SRL scaffolding features are those elements within a WBEG that guide players to use certain SRL strategies, helping and supporting their efforts much like construction scaffolding supports a building as it is being erected. This dissertation also utilizes analyses of procedural rhetoric to investigate the techniques reinforced by the underlying structure of these three WBEGs in an effort to further the understanding of digital literacy in education and sociocultural contexts. All three WBEGs appear to emphasize player agency and collaboration. Waves and Light and Mirrors encourage player strategy, while Color Mixer rewards speed and rote knowledge. These reinforced techniques perpetuate the underlying cultural values of accuracy, collaboration, problem-solving, autonomy, and scaffolding. This study discusses these values in the contexts of education and society.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: CFE0005959, ucf:50799
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005959

Title: Crimean Rhetorical Sovereignty: Resisting a Deportation of Identity.
Creator: Berry, Christian, Pigg, Stacey, Zemlyanskiy, Pavlo, Rounsaville, Angela, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: On a small contested part of the world, the peninsula of Crimea, once a part of the former Soviet Union, lives a people who have endured genocide and who have struggled to etch out an identity in a land once their own. They are the Crimean Tatar. Even their name, an exonym promoting the Crimeans' (")peripheral status(") (Powell) and their ensuing (")cultural schizophrenia(") (Vizenor), bears witness to the otherization they have withstood throughout centuries. However, despite attempts to...
Show moreOn a small contested part of the world, the peninsula of Crimea, once a part of the former Soviet Union, lives a people who have endured genocide and who have struggled to etch out an identity in a land once their own. They are the Crimean Tatar. Even their name, an exonym promoting the Crimeans' (")peripheral status(") (Powell) and their ensuing (")cultural schizophrenia(") (Vizenor), bears witness to the otherization they have withstood throughout centuries. However, despite attempts to relegate them to the history books, Crimeans are alive and well in the (")motherland,(") but not without some difficulty. Having been forced to reframe their identities because of numerous imperialistic, colonialist, and soviet behavior and policies, there have been many who have resisted, first and foremost through rhetorical sovereignty, the ability to reframe Crimean Tatar identity through Crimean Tatar rhetoric. This negotiation of identity through rhetoric has included a fierce defense of their language and culture in what Malea Powell calls a (")war with homogeneity,(") a struggle for identification based on resistance. This thesis seeks to understand the rhetorical function of naming practices as acts that inscribe material meaning and perform marginalization or resistance within the context of Crimea-L, a Yahoo! Group listserv as well as immediate and remote Crimean history. To analyze the rhetoric of marginalization and resistance in naming practices, I use the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) within recently archived discourses. Ruth Wodak's DHA strategies will be reappropriated as Naming Practice Strategies, depicting efforts in otherization or rhetorical sovereignty.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: CFE0004816, ucf:49749
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004816

Title: DESIGNING FOR A JAPANESE HIGH-CONTEXT CULTURE: CULTURE'S INFLUENCE ON THE TECHNICAL WRITER'S VISUAL RHETORIC.
Creator: Carpenter, Russell, Flammia, Madelyn, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis analyzes the challenges technical writers face when designing documents for high-context cultures, such as the Japanese. When developing documents intended to cross cultural gulfs, technical writers must take into consideration cultural expectations, preferences, and practices in document design and communication. High-context cultures, such as Japan, design documents using drastically different design strategies than those used in the United States. Japanese communication habits...
Show moreThis thesis analyzes the challenges technical writers face when designing documents for high-context cultures, such as the Japanese. When developing documents intended to cross cultural gulfs, technical writers must take into consideration cultural expectations, preferences, and practices in document design and communication. High-context cultures, such as Japan, design documents using drastically different design strategies than those used in the United States. Japanese communication habits are more ambiguous than communication in the United States. Thus, the Japanese often use visuals for their aesthetic appeal, not for their ability to complement the text that surrounds the visual. The ambiguous nature of high-context culture communication habits often pose problems when Americans try to communicate--whether through written or oral communication--with a high-context audience. Without careful analysis and research into these cultural implications, the technical writer risks developing unsuccessful documents that do not accomplish the goals of the communication. It takes years of research to understand cultural differences, especially in the case of Japanese communication habits. With the research presented in this thesis, technical writers will understand better how to address document design issues when designing for high-context cultures in general and the Japanese culture specifically. In order to effectively analyze document design strategies across cultures, I have collected documents from two cultures--from the United States and from Japan. These two cultures represent a low-context culture, the United States, and a high-context culture, Japan. The United States and Japan are opposite each other on Edward T. Hall's cultural continuum, providing ideal subjects for a cross-cultural document design analysis. Using previous research in document design and cultural studies, I have established a grid for analyzing visual elements in the documents I have collected--full color automobile sales booklets. I analyze both high- and low-context documents against this grid. The various document design grids allow for visual representation of document design decisions in both cultures. American international technical communicators can use these grids as a starting point for addressing the cultural implications of document design for high-context audiences. The research presented in this thesis shows that high- and low-context cultures use visuals much differently. Readers, in both cultures, are persuaded differently by visual elements. By exploring and analyzing the use of visuals such as photos, diagrams, line drawings, and the way both cultures use visuals to approach their audiences, this thesis attempts to present an explanation of visuals in high-context cultures that will aid American technical writers who design documents for international audiences. This thesis uses Japanese cultural analysis and Japanese design theories to explain high-context design decisions applied to Japanese documents.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: CFE0000372, ucf:46336
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000372

Title: INTERACTIVE TEXT-IMAGE CONCEPTUAL MODELS FOR LITERARY INTERPRETATION AND COMPOSITION IN THE DIGITAL AGE.
Creator: Weaver, Elizabeth, Saper, Craig, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This dissertation focuses on text-image conceptual models for literary interpretation and composition in the digital age. The models investigate an interactive blend of textually-based linear-sequential approaches and visually-based spatial-simultaneous approaches. The models employ Gestalt-inspired figure-ground segregation models, along with other theoretical models, that demonstrate the dynamic capabilities of images as conceptual tools as well as alternate forms of text. The models...
Show moreThis dissertation focuses on text-image conceptual models for literary interpretation and composition in the digital age. The models investigate an interactive blend of textually-based linear-sequential approaches and visually-based spatial-simultaneous approaches. The models employ Gestalt-inspired figure-ground segregation models, along with other theoretical models, that demonstrate the dynamic capabilities of images as conceptual tools as well as alternate forms of text. The models encourage an interpretative style with active participants in open-ended, multi-sensory meaning-making processes. The models use the flexible tools of modern technology as approaches to meaning-making with art strategies used for research strategies as well as a means to appreciate reading and writing in the context of an increasingly visual environment.
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Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: CFE0003008, ucf:48335
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003008

Title: Fanfiction Reviews and Academic Literacy: Potential Impacts and Implications.
Creator: Weiler, Regina, Katt, James, Musambira, George, Butler, John, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This study is meant to elucidate how fanfiction-related activities can incorporate many types of critical review, to call attention to what has been overlooked as significant forms of learning, and to understand and take advantage of the opportunities fanfiction's unconventional writing affords in lieu of more deliberate learning environments. This thesis was undertaken due to the significant gap in work done by aca-fan (-) a portmanteau of academic and fan(-) scholars who have strong links...
Show moreThis study is meant to elucidate how fanfiction-related activities can incorporate many types of critical review, to call attention to what has been overlooked as significant forms of learning, and to understand and take advantage of the opportunities fanfiction's unconventional writing affords in lieu of more deliberate learning environments. This thesis was undertaken due to the significant gap in work done by aca-fan (-) a portmanteau of academic and fan(-) scholars who have strong links to the fanfiction community and culture. The aspects explored are the technical writing skills and techniques demonstrated in fanfiction reviews, the influence of the nontraditional online learning environment, the rhetorical strategies that reviewers use to give feedback, the significant categories of things that reviewers comment on, and the value of skills taught peer-to-peer in this manner. The results of my research suggest that peer review in a relaxed, non-academic context leads to improved confidence and skill among a wide demographic range. This thesis proposes that fanfiction writing, reading, and reviewing supports learning. The evidence suggests that it be incorporated where applicable in formal classroom learning to supplement traditional understandings of grammar, syntax, tone, and the use of universal tropes.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFE0007553, ucf:52603
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007553

rhetoric (30)	+ -
digital rhetoric (8)	+ -
Rhetoric (7)	+ -
rhetorical analysis (6)	+ -
composition (4)	+ -

feminism (4)	+ -
pedagogy (4)	+ -
technical communication (4)	+ -
visual rhetoric (4)	+ -
Kenneth Burke (3)	+ -
agency (3)	+ -
digital humanities (3)	+ -
identification (3)	+ -
power (3)	+ -
technical writing (3)	+ -
writing (3)	+ -
Google (2)	+ -
Technical Communication (2)	+ -
activism (2)	+ -
communication (2)	+ -
critical discourse analysis (2)	+ -
digital activism (2)	+ -
gender (2)	+ -
hypertext (2)	+ -
institutional critique (2)	+ -
intertextuality (2)	+ -
kairos (2)	+ -
linguistics (2)	+ -
literature (2)	+ -
peer review (2)	+ -

ETD Collection (53)	+ -
Honors Collection (6)	+ -

University of Central Florida (59)	+ -
Rounsaville, Angela (10)	+ -
Wheeler, Stephanie (10)	+ -
Scott, Blake (9)	+ -
Bowdon, Melody (7)	+ -

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Pigg, Stacey (6)	+ -
Jones, Dan (5)	+ -
Jones, Natasha (5)	+ -
Vie, Stephanie (5)	+ -
Dombrowski, Paul (4)	+ -
Mauer, Barry (4)	+ -
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