Browsing by Subject "Political Communication"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    The Dialogue Of The Deaf: A Discourse Analysis On The Construction Of The Catalan And Spanish Identities In News Media
    (2018-05) Juarez Miro, Clara
    This study analyzes the role of the media in the relationship between Catalonia and Spain, a prototypical case study for secessionism among developed countries. Framing and discourse theory inform a content analysis to answer the following research questions: (1) How do national media construct Catalan identity in Spain? (2) How do national media construct Spanish identity in Spain? (3) How do Catalan regional media construct Spanish identity in Catalonia? (4) How do Catalan regional media construct Catalan identity in Catalonia? (5) How is the secessionist movement framed in both nation-wide and Catalan media? The analysis focuses on news at three milestones in Spain’s history: The autonomic pacts in 1981, which informed the current distribution of central and regional powers; the secessionist demonstration in 2012, which resulted in the Catalan government’s taking a pro-independence stance; and the ISIS terrorist attacks in Catalonia in 2017, which elevated the political tension between administrations.
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    The Informative Power Of Campaign Advertising
    (2018-06) Motta, Matthew
    Americans' abilities to vote for candidates who represent their policy views has important implications for their representation in government. However, while policy voting theoretically requires knowing where candidates stand on major policy issues (i.e., "campaign knowledge"), it is most typically studied in relation of what people know about civics (i.e., "civic knowledge"). I advance prior research by considering how Americans acquire campaign knowledge, and whether or not this information helps voters select candidates who share their policy preferences. I theorize that policy-focused political ad exposure provides most people with campaign knowledge – especially those who are the least politically engaged. Americans in turn use this information, more so than civic knowledge, to vote for candidates whose issue stances match their own. Merging campaign advertising data from the Wesleyan Media Project into nationally representative cross-sectional and longitudinal opinion data, I find consistent support for both sets of expectations. I conclude by discussing the informational benefits of policy-focused advertising, and considering the impact of changing media and campaign dynamics on Americans' knowledge about politics.
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    Sovereign Language: The Rhetoric of the Terror War Presidents
    (2017-08) Hiland, Alexander
    In the years following the September 11 attacks Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama expanded the power of the presidency to pursue the terror wars. This project explains how this was accomplished by performing a rhetorical criticism of the signing statements, executive orders, and presidential policy directives issued by both of the terror war Presidents. Drawing on insights from scholarship on the rhetorical presidency this project argues that the expansion of presidential powers is best understood as an attempt to incorporate the practices of public address into the exercise of personal power by the President. The implications of this tactic are manifest in the policies produced to pursue the terror wars, including enhanced interrogation, indefinite detention, continuous undeclared wars, mass surveillance, as well as other abuses of human dignity. The powers afforded to the terror war Presidents to pursue these policies have had a detrimental impact not only on the Constitution, but on the democratic practices of the United States. This project argues that the only hope for substantive change will be a fundamental change between the presidency and the public. The presentation will focus on the use of signing statements by both President George W. Bush and Obama to defend and end the practice of indefinite detention. Against legislative efforts to oppose both Presidents by Congress, both Presidents asserted the primacy of the presidency in determining how detained persons ought to be treated and how the terror wars would be fought. Although there are important policy differences between these two Presidents, they shared a commitment to defending the power of the presidency that caused both to circumvent the dictates of Congress. This example represents a microcosm of the broader trends in the presidency during the terror wars toward affording the presidency a sovereign position to unilaterally dictate policy for the country.
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    Taking Campaigns Personally: The Big Five Aspects and Political Behavior
    (2015-08) Chen, Philip
    How do political campaigns and personality traits interact to produce differences in political behavior? This dissertation examines this question, demonstrating across a variety of behaviors and traits that political campaigns cannot be understood without considering the influence of personality traits, nor can personality in politics researchers continue to ignore the influence of situational factors such as political campaigns. Working within the structure of the Big Five personality system and using a series of experiments, I show that political campaigns alter the expression of personality traits, changing how dispositions influence voters' likelihood of voting, political participation, attitude polarization, and information seeking. I claim that voter personality cannot be understood in isolation from the political context (or vice-versa); instead, personality effects are heterogeneous contingent on the political situation.