Dissertation STARs
Yael Avnaim
Unveiling the Iconic: Exploring the Socio-cultural Impact of Touristic Photography on Social Medi
The proliferation of touristic photography on social media has given rise to iconic tourism photos with instant recognition and significant cultural impact. My dissertation delves into this phenomenon, focusing on Instagram as a key platform for disseminating these images. Using the "Deck of Cards" in Cobh, Ireland, as a case study, I explore how such iconic photos shape perceptions, influence tourist behaviors, and affect local communities.
The influx of tourists drawn by these iconic images has had mixed effects on Cobh. Increased visibility has boosted local tourism, bringing economic benefits. However, the surge in tourism has also led to noise, litter, and privacy invasions, prompting some residents to repaint their houses in less striking colors. This tension between visual appeal and residents' quality of life mirrors broader challenges tourist destinations face with the rise of the iconic touristic photo.
Through visual, rhetorical, and narrative analysis, my research examines the qualities that distinguish iconic tourism photos and their socio-cultural dynamics. By analyzing these photos' production and dissemination, I reveal their broader implications for media, economy, culture, and society. My methodology includes fieldwork, archival research, and spatial analysis, offering comprehensive insights into the intersection of photography, tourism, and cultural representation
Delaney Couri
Reconciling Representations: Queer and Religious Identity on Television
Reconciling Representations I engage the increased presence of queer and gender non-conforming characters in mainstream television to interrogate the ways these characters (fail) to embody their religious and queer identities.
While the current media environment seems more queer-inclusive than ever, many major organized Abrahamic religions seem to be getting less queer inclusive. This juxtaposition, between a post-closet media environment and a homophobic religious environment, leaves individuals holding queer and religious identities at a crossroads with nowhere to turn. With this inconsistency in representation and reality, it is important to engage with queer religious characters on television to see what they can tell us about this politically charged moment in history. These representations both impact and reflect the lived experiences of religious LGBTQ+ individuals.
Upon first glance these representations seem to embody queerness and religiosity without issue, but a deeper look reveals that these portrayals position queer and religious identity as irreconcilable. In Reconciling Representations, I examine this constructed irreconcilability through a textual/rhetorical analysis of contemporary U.S. television series: My Unorthodox Life, Transparent Sex Education, Somebody, Somewhere, One Day at a Time, Love, Victor, and The Bold Type.
Valentina Aduen
Legal Activism in Heirs’ Property Law Reform: A Legal Rhetorical Paradigm for Social Change
My dissertation studies the mobilization of personal and community narratives into the law. In order to trace how heirs’ property becomes a public problem I used engaged communication research methods to closely follow an heirs’ property case study and juxtapose with the movements happening in heirs’ property law reform. Two aspects of heirs property reform stand out in this study: 1) the history of racism that has both directly influenced the law and distorted its implementation, resulting in institutional structures that disadvantage specific populations, and 2) the rhetorical problem of how we get individuals to feel that they have a voice and can talk back to and engage with their problems. To engage with the history of heirs’ property, I use a theoretical frame of critical race theory (CRT) and legal realism, and ground my analysis with the case study of the Washington Estate Farm.
I collected, mapped and analyzed legal, environmental, oral, and historical data of the Washington Estate farm in Crockett, TX owned through heirs’ property; land passed through generations without a clear title. Heirs’ property is the most precarious form of land ownership in the United States and one of the main causes for land loss, including the loss of generational wealth, in this case, loss resulting from a predatory oil pipeline easement targeted at Black heirs’ property owners. Through participant observation, oral history interviews, place-based community (re)presentations and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) data I map and overlay landowners’ spatial stories, legal stories and oral traditions and history. In addition to lawyers’, activists’, practitioners’ and scholars’ (LAPS) stories as well as the stories that emerge in the overlay with traditional maps and collected GIS data points. With these methods I identify patterns that inform us of best practices for environmental planning and preservation with heirs’ property owners and am developing a case study format for recording descendants’ legal struggles regarding their land issues as a systematically recorded legal history. This work also informs us of ethical practices when working with communities with land at risk, including important considerations for multimodal research. Multimodal, because I filmed a documentary while conducting fieldwork and designed a strategic communication plan to present findings through a traditional written format, on social media and as a documentary film.